Anupama Chopra reviews Max, Min and Meowzaki, writer-director Padmakumar Narasimhamurthy's dramedy about a break-up, a cat and three generations of men learning to forgive each other. Max and Min, played by Siddharth Menon and Medha Shankr, are young adults dividing up a life together, including custody of a cat named after the legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Around them, the film gathers a wider cast of wounded people — Mandira Bedi's healer Dhaara, Nassar and Nafisa Ali as residents of an old age home, and Adil Hussain as Max's insecure, dominating father Ramesh Mahadevan, adrift after his wife's death.
Anupama notes that the film wears its generous, liberal heart on its sleeve, batting for religious tolerance, queer love, empathy and above all forgiveness. Much of it is people talking in tastefully decorated rooms, and the frames feel visually static; the plot is predictable, some characters register as ideas rather than human beings, and stretches of the Hindi-English dialogue could have come off a Hallmark card. What rescues it is a persistent earnestness — and Adil Hussain, a master of delicate emotion who improves every film he is in. It never finds the ache of Mukti Bhawan, but Adil's thoughtful performance and the film's insistent good intentions steer it. And that is the THR Bottomline. Max, Min and Meowzaki is now playing in theatres.
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