Picture This movie review: NRIs get a nasty deal in Simone Ashley’s Prime Video rom-com

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A still from Picture This.

Pia describes herself as independent on multiple occasions, but the reality is that she is running a failing analog photography business in the era of smartphones. If she and her gay best friend/business partner don’t get their act together, they will be forced to shut the business down within a month. It is during this same month that Pia’s younger sister, Sonal, is going to get married in a conventionally elaborate fashion. Against her pushy mom’s protests, Pia rejects the idea of marriage herself, and declares that she has no interest in raising children. But her mother isn’t having any of it. During a meeting with an unflatteringly portrayed pandit, a prediction is made.

The pandit waves around a ‘vashikaran’ device over Pia’s head, grabs her palm, and declares that one of the next five men that she meets will be the one she marries. Her family accepts the challenge, and plots dates with five different men. “This sounds like a TV show I’d like to binge on,” her best friend jokes, as Pia embarks upon a familiar rom-com plot. A couple of unfortunate dates under her belt — one with a spoilt rich kid and another with a nerd — Pia comes across ‘the one that got away’, her ex-boyfriend Charlie, played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin.

Pia and Charlie were supposed to go to university together in London, but he stayed behind in their home town and they broke up. She clearly isn’t over him, and when they reconnect, sparks fly. You probably know how this movie will end, but that is besides the point. With rom-coms like this, it’s the journey that counts. But Picture This isn’t very interesting on that front, either. It lacks the charm, the humour, and the magnetic star power necessary for a good rom com. Ashley is game, but she is handed the most plain dialogue and expected to somehow polish it.

Director Prarthana Mohan and writer Nikita Lalwani also make the curious decision to keep Charlie and Pia separate from each other for the majority of the movie. It robs their relationship of any tension, and snatches away the opportunity to create drama. Pia mostly hangs out with her buddy — she appears to have just one — and gets into a couple of arguments with her mother. Instead of paying more attention to Pia and Charlie’s unresolved issues, Picture This spends about 20 minutes of precious run time on a subplot involving Pia’s mom, jumping back into the dating pool again decades after splitting with her husband, Pia’s dad.

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Played by Sindhu Vee, the mom isn’t written with much depth either. She’s portrayed as mostly jovial and easygoing, with little to suggest that she is living a lonely life. Even a show like Never Have I Ever, with which Picture This shares tonal similarities, made an effort to present a relatively complex middle-aged Indian woman. If you’re going to divert attention from the main character, you might as well do it right. It’s unclear if Picture this is meant for people Pia’s age — she’s about to turn 30 — or if it’s aimed at the teenage audience that would enjoy Emily in Paris-style ambient TV. It works for neither.

Picture This
Director – Prarthana Mohan
Cast – Simone Ashley, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Sindhu Vee, Nikesh Patel, Anoushka Chadha, Luke Fetherston
Rating – 2/5