The Great Shamsuddin Family movie review: A family we will never see in mainstream Hindi cinema

Here, everything revolves around the members of the Shamsuddin family, who are as ditzy or batty as families which may belong to any other ethno-religious background. Them’s jes’ people like us: that we have to underline this tells you how far we have drifted from a time when a film like this may have come without any caveats ahead or after it.

The Great Shamsuddin Family movie trailer:

That’s one of the chief reasons to get this film on your radar, which comes as a soothing balm in the midst of the polarised ‘mahaul’ or ‘haalaat’ (and films pushing that polarisation), which Bani refers to in a couple of the most affecting interludes of the film. It’s done almost in passing, but there’s no mistaking its intent.

She cites it as the reason for her wanting to go to America, to older sister (Juhi Babbar Soni, whom we really should see more of ), who gets all hurt and huffy for not being taken into confidence. Bani also shares it with an annoying lingo-spouting academic type named Amitav (Purab Kohli) who is clearly an old friend, having shown up without notice at Bani’s house with a young student (Joyeeta Dutta), without realising how creepy that makes him out to be: these two—older prof-young besotted student — are completely superfluous to the proceedings.

Except Amitav is given a redemptive sequence with Bani, with him talking about ‘how nations are like families, uthal puthal toh chalti rehti hai, but if you leave them in a turmoil, the turbulence will stay with you for the rest of your life’. Yes, the lines feel both naive and on the nose, but at the same time they do ring true, as does Purab Kohli, in this fleeting moment: it’s about the only time you don’t feel like clouting his character on the head.

There are several other candidates for that, though, the top spot going to Iram (Shreya Dhanwanthary) ferrying a bag full of cash for reasons too convoluted to go into here. Sisters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers all show up one by one, and the great Shamsuddin family is in full flow, contending with runaway couple involving Zoheb (Nishank Verma) and Pallavi (Anushka Bannerjee), horrified mums (Sheeba Chaddha), as well as the older ladies all set to go to a pilgrimage and their unwitting accomplices (Juhi Babbar Soni, Farida Jalal, Dolly Ahluwalia, Natasha Rastogi).

The plot-and-pace flattens with a few stagey-clunky bits, showing up the challenges of confining the action to a house which is clearly a set. Some lines feel contrived, but this one– ‘kam se kam rishwat toh secular honi chahiye’– makes you smile.

As does most of the film, which touches lightly upon weighty issues — divorce, meher-ki-rakam, love-jihad, traffic pile-ups, the fear of phones going out of reach when the individual is of a minority community– and emerges on the other side, woven in dialogue which is milieu-specific but contemporary.

Watch it for the array of solid performances, helmed by the wonderful Farida Jalal and Sheeba Chaddha, with Anup Soni’s criminally brief appearance leaving a mark. It isn’t perfect, but it makes you smile and think.

The Great Shamsuddin Family movie cast: Kritika Kamra, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Farida Jalal, Sheeba Chaddha, Pubab Kohli, Joyeeta Dutta, Dolly Ahluwalia, Juhi Babbar Soni, Nishank Verma, Anushka Bannerjee, Natasha Rastogi, Anup Soni
The Great Shamsuddin Family movie director: Anusha Rizvi
The Great Shamsuddin Family movie rating: 2.5 stars