Hindi cinema has a complicated relationship with its older characters. They are usually props — wise grandparents, comic relief, or cautionary tales. Mast Mein Rehne Ka does something rarer: it makes them the protagonists and treats their desires with the same seriousness it would extend to anyone half their age.
Jackie Shroff plays a retired man living in a Mumbai chawl who falls, somewhat improbably but entirely charmingly, into a friendship with a younger woman next door. Neena Gupta plays his wife — observant, patient, aware of everything, saying nothing until she says everything. The film's emotional geography is this triangle, and Homi Adajania navigates it with a lightness of touch that his earlier films occasionally lacked.
Shroff has not been this good in years. He plays the character's vanity and longing and genuine warmth simultaneously, without letting any one register crowd out the others. Gupta, working in a more restrained key, is the film's anchor — she knows exactly what is happening and chooses how to respond, which gives her scenes a depth that the more flamboyant material cannot match.
The film is not without its stumbles. The younger couple's storyline is functional at best. And the resolution is neater than real life tends to be. But there is a generosity to this film — toward its characters, toward its audience — that is increasingly rare.
Bilkul.