After Heeramandi and Jubilee, Aditi Rao Hydari finds room for humour in Parivarik ManuRanjan

Not every actor gets to trade a courtesan’s tragic defiance for the absurdities of domestic life. Aditi Rao Hydari is doing just that with Parivarik ManuRanjan, a family comedy that brings her together with Pankaj Tripathi and looks towards a gentler, distinctly old-school tradition of Hindi cinema.

Directed by Varun V Sharma, the film centres on an unlikely pairing, with the humour emerging from situations and relationships rather than spectacle. It is a world that recalls the cinema of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, where middle-class homes, eccentric characters and seemingly minor disagreements could provide the makings of an entire film.

For Aditi, the appeal was immediate. When the project was offered, she was taken by its situational comedy, unexpected turns and warmth. Pankaj, she added, was a master of the genre, making their first on-screen collaboration an opportunity to learn from a performer whose comic instincts rarely depend on delivering a conventional punchline.

That is where the pairing becomes interesting. Pankaj’s humour often comes from what he doesn’t say, while comedy gives his co-star the opportunity to play off those pauses, challenge his reactions and disrupt his carefully calibrated calm. The chemistry between them could prove as important as the situations they find themselves in.

Aditi’s recent work has placed her in some decidedly different worlds, including her cracker of a short in Lust Stories 3. But Parivarik ManuRanjan presents the proposition of finding the funny side of human behaviour without leaning on the heightened emotions or visual grandeur of a period setting.

The comparison with Mukherjee’s cinema is therefore about more than nostalgia. His comedies trusted audiences to recognise themselves in their characters. Their charm came from the small things – family friction, mismatched personalities and the chaos of living together. If Parivarik ManuRanjan captures even a measure of that spirit, it could offer a welcome alternative to comedy built around loud gags and predictable set pieces.

For Aditi, the real test is also the fun – proving that a performer associated with period elegance, heavyweight characters can be just as compelling when the brief is simply to make people laugh.