The film’s central character Meerabai ( Mandira Bedi ) is a maths teacher whose life revolves around the game of cricket and its icon Anil Kumble. So much so that she prefers fantasies of Kumble to real men in flesh and blood. Obviously it’s a cause for concern for Meera’s close-knit family that has an elder brother ( Mahesh Manjrekar ), a disillusioned ex-cricketer who has come to hate the game.Meerabai Not Out is a film that causes embarrassment to the people watching it. More than that, it tests your patience with the slow pace of its utterly predictable plot. You know beforehand how the story’s going to wind up. Yet, you sit yawning and watching the proceeding on the screen with the same boredom as you see a five-day match drag to a lackluster draw.
The trouble with ‘Meerabai Not Out’ is that in spite of its persistent attempts to be different, it remains an ordinary, run-of-the-mill film with marginal and underdeveloped characters. The humour ends up looking silly and many situations (like Meera coming late for her engagement because she had to catch a match) appear outright ridiculous to even laugh at, forget believing them.
Romance enters Meera’s life with the coming of a doctor (Eijaz Khan) but soon she finds herself on the crossroad where she has to choose between cricket and love. It eventually boils down to a match between Meera’s brooding brother and her fiancé.
Directed by Chandrakant Kulkarni, ‘Meerabai Not Out’ begins on a promising note but plods as it approaches the interval point. Things gain momentum before the climactic match in which Meera’s fate is to be decided. But by then you are so tired that you want to raise your (index) finger and declare Meerabai – OUT!!!
Mandira Bedi, sans her noodle-strap blouses, brings about the needed exuberance to her cricket-buff character without ever showing a truly histrionic moment in her performance. The supporting cast too offers nothing laudable, including the usually superb Anupam Kher as Meera’s prospective father-in-law. Anil Kumble’s cameo fails to enliven the dull script. He needs a ‘doosra’ attempt to make his mark.
