‘Life in a Metro’ (2007) Review: Love, Relationships and Life

” Ek sheher jitna humme deta hai, utna humse leta hai.”

This movie talks about the lives of a group of people, living in the metropolitan city of Mumbai. Their stories and lives are interrelated. The lead actors of this movie directed by Anurag Basu are Shilpa Shetty (Shikha), Kay Kay Menon (Ranjit), Kangana Ranaut (Neha), Dharmendra (Amol), Nafisa Ali (Shivani), Shiney Ahuja (Aakash), Irrfan Khan (Monty), Konkona Sen Sharma (Shruti) and Sharman Joshi (Rahul).

Ranjit and Shikha are married, and they have a 6yr old daughter. When they first got married, they both were working and earned enough to run the family, eventually, Ranjit and Shikha decided that they would share responsibilities. Shikha was a Bharatanatyam dancer, left her job after they were blessed with a child. After 8 years of their marriage, they both had somewhere in this long journey lost the love, care and respect that they had for each other. Ranjit is having an extramarital affair with his junior at work, Neha. Neha, Ranjit, and Aakash have a common workplace. Ranjit is senior amongst the two, and thus has more authority in the company.

Aakash since always silently felt different for Neha. Neha shared a room in this fast-moving city with Shruti. Shruti and Ranjit are related, she is his sister-in-law. Shruti is in her late 20s, single and a virgin. She is trying to discover true love in this big city. Through an Indian matrimonial website, Shaadi.com she met Monty. On their first meeting, Shruti wasn’t very impressed by Monty and doesn’t give him much attention whereas in the other side Monty was attracted to Shruti because according to him she was the right combination of a gorgeous looking and intellectually sharp girl, he was interested to take their relationship and get married. Shruti works at a radio company and is actually attracted to her colleague.

Rahul seemed to have a creative approach to step up the success path. He offers his apartment at the workplace to his bosses, where they can comfortably bring in their mistresses, wives or prostitutes, in exchange for his promotional recommendation. Ranjit takes advantage of the flat to visit Neha. Neha asks Ranjit about their future during one of their escapades in Rahul’s apartment, which leads to a dispute. He offends her. Enraged, she tries self-harm. Rahul finds unconscious of her lying and saves her. He brings her back to his apartment, closer to them. While all this is taking place, Shruti is left heartbroken when she learns that the colleague, she had a thing for is homosexual. She leaves the job and goes for an interview at this company where she meets Monty again.

Akash is a struggling artist in the theatre field, separated from his wife. One rainy evening while Shikha is rushing back home, she has some trouble with her umbrella, Aakash offers to fix it and that’s how they met at the bus stand for the first time and eventually came across each other regularly. Because their timings matched and because Aakash practiced his drama, the floor below that Shikha used to drop in to visit her Bharatanatyam instructor Amma (Shivani). The relationship between Akash and Shikha begins as friendship and blossoms almost romantically, until Shikha feels guilty and is unable to cross the boundaries she has kept for years. In the meantime, Shruti finds out about Ranjit and Neha. Ranjit panics and admits his two-year affair with Neha to Shikha. already guilty Shikha can no longer contain it and tells him about her intimate relationship with Akash. Ranjit is furious and surprised and decides to leave his wife. This is the crux of the movie. It is a delightful movie. It is basically trying to cover and demonstrate two things. One is how our lives are evolving and changing because of today’s fast-paced competitive world and the second being that love is something that can happen to anybody, anytime and with anyone. The idealized meaning of love is different for everyone and we must learn to accept it and live with it.

The music album of this movie is very soothing and the songs are well written and are very meaningful. We can catch the glances of Pritam and his band in the movie.