Tina Ruia (Pooja Bhatt) has been discarded from her industrialist husband’s home and now stays in a dingy two-room apartment, but her faithful chauffeur of happier times drives her every fortnight in the family Mercedes to "Xen’s" to keep up pretences. There she runs into socialite Misha (Anahita Uberoi), who with the zest of an investigative reporter, uncovers her story but Misha too has a dark secret.

Then there’s Mr Mittal (Boman Irani), a very thorough businessman, who totally disguises his emotions. But what is he doing on those secret holidays abroad? Rage (Rahul Bose) is an out-of-work actor pretending to be very busy and for that he must be noticed, even if he has to make himself quite repulsive to the other customers. Tina and Bobby, of course, are two innocents just trying to find a rendezvous to do their necking and they are meant to provide dramatic relief. But did they have to bring in that "leper invasion" scene? Was that the only way they could show the seedier side of Mumbai?

It is a fairly impressive array of characters that director Bose assembles, from the stoic Mittal to the gregarious, if repulsive, Rage, but by doing so he not only avoids the cliches of the clockwork, made-in-Mumbai pot-boiler, but tries to be elitist by aiming at a minimal section of upper-crust society which he finds quite shallow. In this funky world of Bose anything goes and he resorts to surprise and shock tactics, not always successfully. It is a mixed bag and Bose seems to be working on his own psycho-therapy of sorts.

The result is a mildly interesting story but the pacing is good, a sort of MTV style narrative (inspired probably by Run, Lola Run) and backed by an evocative track by Zakir Hussain. It is these factors that make the viewer overlook the other misgivings in this rather patchy narrative, which, at times, is quite pathetic. That the duplicity of the upper crust comes across is not surprising even if at times it is rather simplistic. But the hidden demons in most cases continue to stay hidden.

The excessive colour-filtered clouds’ scenes are jarring, but otherwise the production is slick. The content is unable to match the form. Rehaan Engineer underplays the lead role well in a kind of Norman Bates-modelled part, but Koel Puri is needlessly exuberant. Pooja Bhatt’s is an impressive cameo, but the same cannot be said about Anahita Uberoi, who tends to overact. Boman Irani underplays his part well. As for Rahul Bose, he seems to have exercised his directorial licence by making a meal of the out-of-work actor Rage even if it was far from being realistic or pleasing.

In sum, Everybody Says I’m Fine is like the curate’s egg, good in parts.