Two years after Tharun Bhascker Dhaasyam made his directorial debut with the heartwarming romance Pelli Choopulu, a film Telugu audiences hold dear to them, comes the Hindi remake titled Mitron. Taking this story to a pan-Indian audience is director Nitin Kakkar who made the impressive Filmistaan (2012).
When the title was revealed, the director had to go on an overdrive insisting that it has nothing to do with Narendra Modi’s once oft-used word, mitron, but a reflection of the Gujarati way of speaking. Mitron is set in Gujarat and Nitin Kakkar states that it has the resonance of the original. “The writing was honest and had a freshness to it. It was a sweet film. The actors (Ritu Varma and Vijay Deverakonda) were relatively new and that worked for the film. The story of a young woman in a city like Hyderabad or Ahmedabad with dreams of an entrepreneurial nature and wanting to find her path without antagonising her family, I felt, will work anywhere in India,” he reasons.
The trailer of Mitron was met with trepidation by those who’ve loved the original and Nitin is aware of it. “I want them to watch Mitron and decide. It’s normal to feel protective of the original, but I can assure that I’ve been responsible enough to not spoil a much-loved film. It’s also a compliment to the original when someone likes the story and wants to remake it; isn’t it?” he asks.
A year ago, Bareilly ki Barfi captured the attention of film enthusiasts. “India is alive in these smaller cities. The matador van that’s revamped as a food truck in Mitron is symbolic of the coming together of the old and the new,” says Nitin.
Mitron might have acquired a more commercial hue thanks to the party track composed by Yo Yo Honey Singh, but the director insists it’s only a promotional tool while the film has music by an ensemble of composers.
The original story was inspired by Bengaluru-based couple Siddhanth Sawkar and Gautami Shankar who set up the ‘Spitfire BBQ’ food truck. In the film, the lead characters meet over a wrong ‘pelli choopulu’ or a matchmaking meet and later collaborate to set up a food truck. The characters are different as chalk and cheese – he wants to be a chef but is lazy to the bone while she’s the bright spark, determined to be an entrepreneur while her father thinks it’s time for her to be married off. The story unfolds in a slice-of-life format, presenting a tapestry of characters and conversations in the two households, laced with joyous music. Pelli Choopulu went on to win National Awards for Best Feature Film in Telugu and Best Dialogues.
Once he decided to remake the film, Nitin Kakkar met Siddhanth Sawkar who did a cameo as a chef in the original. “He does the chef cameo in Mitron as well,” states Nitin. The director was keen on casting actors who didn’t have a star image and baggage. “Both Jackky Bhagnani and Kritika Kamra have that non-star quality to them,” he points out.
As Nitin discusses how he wanted to retain the essence of the original since he was bowled over by its script, he underlines that he couldn’t find a distinctive trait to the part of the hero’s friend (played by Priyadarshi) with a Telangana accent. “As someone who doesn’t understand Telugu, I didn’t realise it was such a different accent until someone elaborated. Though Gujarat has different dialects — in Ahmedabad, Kutch or Baroda – I didn’t make the hero’s friend talk in a very distinct manner. I was also conscious of not caricaturing the Gujaratis.”
We ask him about the paradigm shift from the indie-spirited Filmistaan to Mitron and Nitin says he didn’t want to be boxed into a certain kind of cinema and looked for a new challenge.