3BHK movie review: Siddharth-starrer is a contrived yet resonant family drama

It’s this essence of shared living that defines 3BHK, a compelling narrative about a low-to-middle-class family’s incredible and incessant yearning to own a home in the perpetually on-the-rise Chennai. Over a period of two decades, the story presents how the Vasudevan family (with an endearing and measured Sarathkumar playing the eponymous patriarch) does everything and beyond in its might to realise that dream and how their intertwined existence ebbs and flows in a pursuit that remains tantalisingly within reach, yet almost never is. A long sequence of rented homes, the many minor but nagging problems they bring, a persistent financial instability, the hovering fear of illness or death, and a set of lives that has never truly lived with freedom or abandon: everything about Vasudevan & Family rings true including the fact that opting out of this rat race is not really an option.

3BHK has hit screens across India.

If Vasudevan takes on extra hours as an accountant to save those extra bucks, his son Prabhu sacrifices a normal adulthood in preparation for the ‘battles’ ahead of him. If Prabhu’s mother (Devayani, in an underwritten role) decides to sell savouries and contribute in her own way, his younger sister Aarti gladly compromises by remaining in a government school simply because the family can afford convent education for only one of them (although she is clearly the smarter one). The bottom line here is to not give up, even at the cost of personal sanity and aspiration. And Sri Ganesh manages to go beyond the usual by tapping into the greys of middle-class life, particularly through Prabhu, who is plagued by the feeling that he is always inadequate to see his father’s dream to the finish line. The father-son relationship isn’t strained – on the contrary, is imbued with a rare kind of sensitivity – yet the juggling act of living a false life and disappointing his father chips away at him, inch by inch, year by year. The city’s real estate never yields and the banks do not budge either, meaning that Prabhu and co. are made to forever carry a tender weight that never lifts, yet never crushes.

The writing shines in how it stitches together a vignette-like narrative wherein each scene carries a sense of urgency. Spanning 140 minutes, the screenplay is layered (at times even overcrowded) with emotional currents that refreshingly keep the story from becoming predictable, even as it flirts with over-sentimentality. The ensemble cast delivers effectively, and Sri Ganesh orchestrates a strong sense of synergy among them to allow multiple characters to traverse substantial arcs – an element that becomes key to his storytelling.

A major grouse with 3BHK, in the same vein, is its excessive reliance on cliche. The film intentionally dials up the drama and while it remains steadfast with that decision, it leaves little room for the mundanities of life to exist on their own. Everything, from fate to emotion, is rendered fragile to the extent that the viewer is offered no respite from “feeling” one thing after another, and Sri Ganesh ends up over-employing music composer Amrit Ramnath as a result. The background score is present throughout to nudge us emotionally and the constant coaxing becomes too much to handle after a point, particularly in the second half. Saeed Roustayi’s 2022 Iranian film Leila’s Brothers comes as a fitting juxtaposition in this case, where a similarly restless family’s hunt for stability is laced with crackling everydayness.

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The contrived nature of 3BHK ultimately becomes a hard-to-ignore flaw and consequently, the film doesn’t entirely manage to fulfill its potential. Both the writing and the execution feel overstated at times, and the resolution, too, comes off a tad sticky-sweet. And yet, it has the ambition to tread a lesser-walked path and in doing so, it produces some memorable moments that are sure to linger and make up for the missteps. Heartfelt yet heavy, this is a film that should be given a chance just for the resonance it strikes with us.

3BHK movie director: Sri Ganesh
3BHK movie cast: Siddharth, R. Sarathkumar, Devayani, Yogi Babu
3BHK movie rating: 3 stars