Pati Patni Aur Woh Do review: Spririted Ayushmann Khurrana, Sara, Wamiqa, Rakul Preet make this comedy work

PAti, Patni Aur Woh DoDirector: Mudassar AzizCast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Sara muhammad ali Khan, Rakul Preet Singh, Wamiqa GabbiRating: 3.5 starsComedy is serious business organisation. In an epoch of reels and inst satisfaction, I often find myself laughing harder at one-minute Instagram gags than most full-length films manage to. Which is why it feels heartening when a film arrives that understands a simple truth: good actors can’t save a weak script, and a sharp script means little without the right performers. Pati, Patni Aur Woh Do (PPAWD) gets both the departments right.What is the plot of Pati Patni Aur Woh Do?Mudassar Aziz, after the equally entertaining Khel Khel Mein, is back in form as a director. Set in Prayagraj, the story revolves around Prajapati (Ayushmann Khurrana), a forest department official. Married to journalist Aparna (Wamiqa Gabbi), he agrees to help his friend Chanchal (Sara Ali Khan) elope with her boyfriend Sunny (Vishal Vashishtha). Sunny’s father (Tigmanshu Dhulia) is firmly against their marriage, so Prajapati pretends to be Chanchal’s boyfriend for the optics. Thrown into the mix is Nilofer (Rakul Preet Singh), Prajapati’s colleague, who is misled into believing that he and Chanchal are having an affair. What follows is a full-blown comedy of errors. On paper, the story doesn’t offer anything particularly novel that audiences haven’t seen in some form before. What it thankfully avoids, however, is steering into the overused territory of the husband philandering. The first half is packed with laughs, driven largely by Mudassar’s sharp one-liners. The pacing stays crisp, and the intermission lands.The second half, too, manages to keep the laughter quotient intact. At nearly two hours, the film achieves what it sets out to do, and that in itself feels refreshing. There’s a barrage of naughty jokes, but they don't tip over into vulgarity.This film simply would not have landed had the cast not been this good. Ayushmann Khurrana gets the pitch of Mudassar’s comedy perfectly, and half the time, it’s his expressions alone that draw a chuckle from the viewer. Rakul Preet Singh gets room to experiment here, and fits into this quirky world. Wamiqa Gabbi proves that she has a flair for comedy, while also sharing believable chemistry with Ayushmann. Sara Ali Khan holds her own and delivers a confident performance.Durgesh Kumar, who incidentally also appears in Kartavya, released on Netflix the same day as PPAWD, turns out to be a welcome addition to the cast. Tigmanshu Dhulia shines in his brief role, while Vijay Raaz fares well.PPAWD doesn’t gain much from its music, largely because the story leaves very little room for songs to make an impact.The verdictOverall, Pati, Patni Aur Woh Do is the kind of film that knows exactly what it wants to be and rarely loses sight of it. Packed with misunderstandings and energetic performances, it delivers enough laughs to justify the ride, even if some stretches work better than others.