Genre : Drama
Year : 2017
Running time : 2 hours 19 minutes
Director : Suresh Triveni
Cast : Vidya Balan, Manav Jaul, Neha Dhupia, Vijay Acharya
Kid rating : PG
I’ve put off seeing this movie for a while, because there was only one star in this film, and although Vidya can carry a film very well on her own shoulders (you’ve seen Kahaani, yes?), in a role such as this – over-the-top, bubbly-ish – I though she’d be a bit much. Well, I was pleasantly surprised – because, although in certain scenes, you could see the real Vidya break through (especially when dissolving into loud, incessant peals of laughter) – she held it together beautifully, and I quite rooted for her character in the film.
Sulochana is a housewife, with a penchant for participating and winning contests. Bubbly Sulu gets the opportunity to become a late-night radio jockey, and is delirious when her show becomes a hit. She manages to bring her common sense and warmth to the show even when exhorted to make her voice sultry and inviting to male callers. Her husband and family though, when they hear her on air, deem it not respectable, and ask that she quit. Well, she won’t.
When you think about it, it is a bit of the ghisa-pita, regressive society blah-blah-blah kind of kahaani, but yet Tumhari Sulu makes it fresh. Balan is responsible for much of the freshness, because she is quite lovely as Sulu, managing to make even middle-class, modest, sari-clad Sulu, with her ghar-ka-khana and her homely nature, such a poster-girl for empowerment. Sulu is a character with real heart, she is impetuous and loves surprises, but she also doubts herself. Her sense of self worth, much eroded by a disparaging dad and a pair of supercilious bank-jobbing sisters, is buoyed by the her boss’s (Dhupia) confidence in her. I loved the fact that even when her loving and supportive husband (Kaul) begins to doubt her choices, she believes enough in herself to not back down.
The downer of course, and there is a downer, is that all the melodrama gets resolved too quickly, and too unsatisfactorily for me. The film chomps down nice and hard on a real problem, but then is quite content to let go, without a whimper, without a fight. All the loose ends tie up nicely with a bit of mommy drama, and a few tears. Tumhari Sulu had the potential to go places. Alas, it doesn’t.
Still, a decent film. Watch it for Balan.
Kidwise: Relatively clean. Some lasvicious talk, but that’s pretty much it.
