Between done-to-death tropes and flimsily updated ones, Mere Husband Ki Biwi sticks to ancient formulae yet gives a semblance of keeping up with the times only to confirm that old habits die hard. In Mudassar Aziz’s routine rom-com, a divorcee dangles between his fiery ex and doting fiancée sparking off a battle for one-upmanship. It starts like a cheesy David Dhawan comedy salvaged by Govinda’s inimitable lunacy back in the day and advances into a My Best Friend’s Wedding rehash sans the deliciousness of Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz’s jell-o pitted against creme brulee. Except this return to the 1990s style of whimsy evokes more nausea than nostalgia with its drab humour and out of sync performances.

Ankur Chaddha (Arjun Kapoor) has nightmares about ex-wife Prableen (Bhumi Pednekar), long after they’ve been divorced. Closing a real estate deal for his dad (Shakti Kapoor) in picturesque Rishikesh, Ankur bumps into the glamorous Antara Khanna (Rakul Preet Singh) who was out of reach for him in their college days. She is rich, swings between teaching handgliding and practising sports physiotherapy, and she’s single. He goes into flashbacks to tell her (and the audience) what happened with the bhootni incarnate in his nightmares. Antara and Prableen have history too, flashing back to college days, to friction in a queue to pick up a form. Memories of the taunts at Antara’s leg-revealing shorts and her retorts to Prableen, haven’t faded with time. A second jab at happiness beckons when romance blooms. Ankur even overcomes his fear of heights to propose to Antara dramatically, dropping from a parachute in front of a mall. But Prableen with her menacing “Baby, Baby” has returned, her memory conveniently blanking out their divorce.

Mere Husband Ki Biwi is such a generic and run-of-the-mill North Indian production that if it were edible, it’d be a half-crispy aloo paratha for breakfast. If it were a person, it’d be Rocky Randhawa (without the self-awareness) from Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. If it were an emotion, it’d be the entitled rage of drivers at the Delhi-Gurgaon toll plaza. If it were a place, it’d be a breezy mustard field — but only as a painting in an upscale art gallery. I can go on, but you get the gist. It looks like every other entry in the genre: glossy, distant, intermittently alive but ultimately soulless. At least it’s environmentally conscious, because it recycles a whole book of tropes: the wise-ass best friend played by a comedian; a lustful Shakti Kapoor character; a quirky voice-over starting the film but disappearing after the introduction; an Amritsari girl who addresses her husband by either his surname, yaar, baby or baby yaar; a love triangle between a Chaddha, a Dhillon and a Khanna where two of them spend an entire half secretly competing with each other for the ‘prize’; a dozen slow-mo shots of them walking towards, past or away from each other with contempt and pride; an overseas almost-wedding; and so on and so (un)forth.