The guy who came up with the title needs to be fired; or sent back to whatever school title-writers go to (compulsory re-training is a thing these days!) The unimaginative title was a big reason I never wanted to touch the movie with a ten foot pole. That too despite a couple of peppy songs, which I very much liked. No way I was going to watch a movie with that title. Especially one with a review of one and a half star! Still when the movie popped up on the menu on a night after a tiring trip, one either had to volunteer to browse on for a better option (and take guarantee for it!), or just watch on. So watch on we did, despite all my reservations.
Well, it had modular tropey kind of feel. However, it was nothing more than the last zillion Adam Sandler rom-coms I have seen recently. The professional break-up guy has also been done to death in the Hollywood Rom Com universe. However, professional break-up guy doing one's own break-up seems new. (That, or I may have missed a few Rom-Coms.) It was also handled professionally. However, the deeper issue which was discussed in this movie was surprisingly mature - the status of a young couple (or family) in a larger, modern loosely 'joint' family (MLJF).
Traditional joint families (TJF) stuck to the "native place" - the gaon, the pind. The MLJF, however, began when Whatsapp first came to India. It's existence continues in an amorphous way, online. TJF also stuck to the family profession - the old khet-khalihan, the old kirana shop, or the old haweli management. Young generation taking over essentially meant the older generation effectively retiring - not only professionally, but also from all the 'wordly' life. In MLJF, however, both the senior and junior generations have been working in modern professions. The senior generation need not retire to bootstrap the junior generation. Even if they are retired professionally, they continue dwelling in the same social status - attending events, entertaining guests, taking vacations. As long as the MLJF remains totally amorphous, that is not an issue. However, since MLJF is not rooted, it can happen, by design or by serendipity, that the senior and junior generations may come to live in physical vicinity. Suddenly, there boils up a primal need for hierarchy, and the primal need to convert into a TJF, in some way. It is not that anyone tells anyone to do it. It would, in fact, be much better if someone makes one's views on it explicitly clear. Then the other party may choose to oppose or acquiesce. However, the unsaid and largely supposed expressions wreak havoc on the mental states of the parties concerned. It is wrong to assume that only the senior wing feels this longing for "return to roots". Even the juniors somehow feel that things need to be this way. It, and the ensuing confusion, is portrayed well in the episode where the leading lady dons a "traditional" kurta, instead of the usual western wear. No one asked her to. It was just the thought of meeting the MLJF, a Dadi included!
Another issue, which is clearly brought out in the movie, is a big issue in MLJF. No, it is not the scheming saas. It is the general excess of love per cubic meter. The extended family dinners with the extended family, the need for someone to cook (when there is no need, and where a takeout would have sufficed), the lack of medical privacy, the lack of limited admission programs - the reader must be getting it.
The leading pair of the movie break up on this issue, which many would find trivial, but which, in reality, pervades every free waking moment of a MLJF. I was waiting to see how that is resolved by the plot - over its 20 minutes short of 3 hours run. However, even after that long a runtime, the issue is left unresolved. Yeah! Apparently the leading lad's "pyaar" is so powerful that, after the done to death airport chase routine, and a bent knee proposal by the extended family, the leading lady acquiesces. What follows, in post credits, is the familiar tussle over waking routine of the juniors, or over the preference accorded to food other than the seniors' cooking. While the depiction is truthful in the enumeration, these conflicts are brushed aside with playfulness. In reality, these are not remotely playful; infact they drain the lifeblood out of the relationship, both intra and inter generation.
So, let's summarize - one, it is a rather run of the mill rom-com, with a few time tested tropes; two, the part about the professional breaker-upper breaking up his own relationship was a new idea; three, a very big thing about the movie, the thing that drove me to right this whole article, was the fact that the movie, very gingerly, opens up the conversation about the issues of the MLJFs; and four, despite it opening the question mentioned above, it does ultimately a cop-out, remaining just the problem-stater, not the solution giver.
Hence, while it absolutely does not deserve the one and a half star rating Express gave it, the squandered chance keeps it off the big league. Still, for opening up this necessary conversation, it deserves at least a three. The big question may be left to a more mature drama, maybe a limited OTT series - maybe something by TVF!
