Review : Sorry Bhai

Rating : Good (4.2/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2008
Running time : 2 hour 10 minutes
Director : Onir
Cast : Shabana Azmi, Boman Irani, Sanjay Suri, Sharman Joshi, Chitrangada Singh
Kid rating : PG-13

SORRY BHAI : ONE FAMILY’s EMOTIONAL DRAMA !

You know how first impressions are – I see the title, and it’s “Sorry Bhai” and I’m thinking witheringly – doesn’t it have a tagline ? It doesn’t because it isn’t another one of those wanna-be-deeper films. But you could be mistaken, “Sorry Bhai” for a name sounds very much the same genre as “Partner” or “Golmaal returns”. Thankfully, it’s neither another “Partner” nor another “Welcome” – “Sorry Bhai” is actually a pretty decent drama.

And why not ? It is directed by Onir, of “My brother Nikhil” fame, after all. As in that film, Onir manages to make this a human story, it is about people like us, with families like we have. And what I especially liked in “SB” is it’s natural-ness, it’s light and frothy and tumultuous and witty like people often are. The humor is subtle and nicely woven into the real-sounding dialogues.

SB is a story of two brothers and the one woman they both love. Also it is a story of the family unit – the two brothers and their parents (Shabana Azmi and Boman Irani) who are affected by all this love-lorn drama in their midst. Shabana Azmi is, as always, magnificent as the pouting matriarch. Boman Irani is her equal though, all glinting eyes and sly humor, in depicting the loving father to his two sons. However, the actor who really steals the limelight here is Sharman Joshi, masterfully under-playing Siddharth, a jazz-loving physicist, attracted to his brother’s fiancee. Suri plays the elder brother Harsh, engaged to Aliya (Chitrangada Singh). While Suri and Singh also do well, I didn’t find their roles as well fleshed out as the others.

This is a lovely film. It got me chuckling at all the family jokes, the horsing around and the good-natured banter. It also got me all weepy and anguished at the dilemma the brothers face. Onir handles all the emotion very well – whether it’s the light jabs between the family members, or the heavy tension after the “revelation”. There is no filmi rona-dhona here, it’s all pretty realistically done. I genuinely felt for these guys, and cared about how it would end. There is one scene in particular, which I found very moving, and in it Irani (the father) is exhorting his son (Sharman) to break the Maa ki kasam oath which his Mom has given him, and go marry the woman he loves. Sharman, broken and teary-eyed lying on the bed, afraid that harm will befall his Mom should he not keep his promise to her, murmurs “I can’t take that chance”. And you can see how very much he wants to take his father’s advice, but won’t.

SB has a good screenplay, deft direction, an outstanding cast and features a pleasant sound-track. The film captures very nicely the ties that bind; how it is that we torture the very people we love, use our love as ransom, as power over our own people. And how after all, love heals. Highly recommended.

The film is fairly clean, but has a few love-making scenes which earns it a PG-13 rating. If you liked it, you might also like :
– My brother Nikhil
– Ahista Ahista
–Tera mera saath rahe