Yeh Meri Family 2 review: This 90s nostalgia trip lacks heart of the original

Set in the ‘winter of 90s’, Yeh Meri Family 2 revolves around the Awasthi family. The story is told from the perspective of 11th grader Ritika (Hetal Gada), who is scared of ‘Kiran Bedi’ of the house – her mother Neerja (Juhi Parmar) – and is hesitant to talk to her father Sanjay (Rajesh Kumar). Her younger brother Rishi (Anngad Maaholay) is the only enemy whom she can’t bear to see sad. And, her ‘dadi’ (Veena Mehta), like all grandparents, shields her from her strict mother.

Watch the trailer of Yeh Meri Family season 2 here:

The five episodes are about issues in adolescent Ritika’s life like her demand for her room, ‘cable TV’, rejection from her first crush in school, struggle for her mother’s permission to party with friends on New Year’s Eve, and bad performance in school. When she is not fighting with her mother, she is agonising about her mother’s strict behaviour with her friend Sonal on the landline.

The strength of Yeh Meri Family, when it first came out in 2018, was in the way it captured the essence of the 90s and married nostalgia with a story that was as heartwarming as it was relatable. This time too we get tangible proofs of the show’s milieu, for instance, frequent mentions of Aishwarya Rai who became Miss World in the 90s, the introduction of Ruf and Tuf jeans, Phantom Cigarettes, Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne, Caller ID, book cricket, Kinetic Honda scooter and Fiat car.

But this time around, these pop culture references are just littered across episodes without them being an organic part of the narrative. It’s more like, ‘Oh, things from your childhood and adolescence make you nostalgic? We will throw at you all those things, just don’t ask us for a substantial story’. Subtlety left the room when the camera zoomed in on that big landline phone to ensure we are transported to the past. Knowing what your audience loves is one thing, but manipulating them with that knowledge is another.

Pop culture references are just littered across episodes without them being a part of the narrative.

Some of the episodes did reflect on the social dynamics of those days — how a young age Ritika is conditioned to keep her family’s needs before hers. When everyone gets sick in the family, she becomes the caregiver, keeping her studies on the backburner, despite anxiety of exams. She also sacrifices her sports trial for her brother’s science project. But, again, these moral conflicts are just mentioned, and never addressed.

 

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In terms of characterisation, we never really get to know anyone besides Ritika in the Awasthi family, which makes the show more of a character sketch of Ritika instead of a story of a middle-class family of five. However, despite the lack of a good script, Juhi Parmar as mother of an adolescent has tried to make the performance relatable. She is most believable as a mother who is hard on the outside but soft on the inside. She yells at Ritika for not folding her ‘rajai’ but hugs her after a heartbreak. Rajesh Kumar, an actor we have all loved as Rosesh, gets to do little as the father who finds it difficult to communicate with his daughter. But, he still manages to ace the portrayal of a ‘mummy-se-poocho’ kind of father. Child actor Anngad Maaholay as the irritable sibling Rishi is the only source of laughs but his precociousness can be hard to accept given the era we are talking about.

The show is more of a character sketch of Ritika instead of a story of a middle-class family of five. (Photo: Amazon miniTV)

The strength of Yeh Meri Family was its rootedness, relatability, universal story and oodles of nostalgia. Moments like the siblings fighting for the TV remote and a strict Mona Singh telling the younger Harshu to let his elder brother study led to me, my mother and brother sharing a moment and a look. Alas, the second season didn’t serve a single moment where we turned to each other and gave that ‘been there’ look. Director Mandar Kurundkar’s lazy execution made me miss the feel-good vibe of the show even more.

After the five episodes of Yeh Meri Family 2, I am going back to the first season (streaming on TVFPlay) to take a charming and comforting trip down memory lane.