Watching Shakun Batra’s Kapoor & Sons (Since 1921) is like reading a book you are slowly but surely falling in love with. A book that you read curled up in a window seat on a rainy day, with a cup of tea by your side, hoping that the story will never end because it makes you taste a slice of crumbly, homemade apple pie. And infuses the chill of fresh grief in your bones as a bereaved woman rubs her cold hands together and sits down to talk in broken sentences. And holds you by the hand and walks with you into the warmly glowing verandahs of hill cottages at dusk. Into lives that are not unlike our own.
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And once you walk in, you recognise characters you have met atleast once in your life. The wife with grey, straggly hair, her mouth curled perpetually to keep the rancid bitterness of betrayal in. The husband who does not even make eye contact with his wife except when the two are snarling like twisted beings far removed from the world where love was simple, easy and uncomplicated. And they were whole. And together. He pores over the accounts of a defeated business and refuses to look up as she complains about the plumbing issues in the bathroom. He won’t praise her cooking and will mock her business aspirations, never acknowledge his part in her anger or frustration because he is atleast not a wife beater. And there are the children. Carrying their own silent, secret universes of pain and resentment.
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And the little cruel lies, omissions of kindness and love that sometimes spiral into life altering tragedies. The best part of Kapoor & Sons is that nothing about it is cosmetic, studied, false. Producer Karan Johar’s penchant for overstylised sets gives away to a home that is frayed at the seams, has an unkempt garden to reflect the emotional neglect the inmates subject each other to, a dripping bathroom and an air of unresolved angst. And there are the cleansing moments of sunshine when the family bonds over an old Hindi film song, an album and a birthday party. The way an old man with a neem facepack on his cheeks shares a joint with his grandsons and swaps wild stories.
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There is also something unusual about the writing (by Shakun Batra and Ayesha Devitre Dhillon) and the tuning of the scenes. The scenes do not have the staccato quality of screenplays that begin, unfold and end on a crisp note. Here each dialogue is a conversation, every scene is a series of moments seguing into more moments some of which do not show and tell you anything about the story but give you an insight into a character.
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Like the scene where Alia’s Tia is looking for sugar cigarettes and a snatch from her childhood in a grocery shop. Or the time Rahul (Fawad Khan), the “perfect baccha” of the family has wrecked his father’s car and is clowning around it while Arjun, the overlooked and underloved sibling (Sidharth Malhotra) takes his pictures in a moment of rare camaraderie.
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And so many delicious asides. The plumber who walks into a family conversation about finances and is too afraid to ask for money in a “mushkil waqt.” Or the green lollypop instead of proper change at the toll booth. Or the moment in the hospital when in the middle of a conversation, we a see a body building aspirant lifting a child in a wheelchair. Or two young girls rolling their eyes in ecstasy as Fawad Khan walks around them, talking over the phone. Or grandchildren falling to the ground everytime their daadu sprays them with make-believe bullets. Not one single phoney moment here and we can safely say that Dharma Productions has come a long way from the overbaked melodrama of Kabhi Khushi, Kabhi Gham. Jeffery F. Bierman’s unobtrusive cinematography is part of the flow rather than an outsider’s gaze.
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Unlike conventional Hindi film narratives, this one does not have a hero and a heroine and a set of supporting characters. It has a story where every character counts, has a place, something to overcome and resolve. This is not the milky, saccharine steeped world of Sooraj Barjatya with a leading man who despite being the exemplification of sanskars, must strip down to the waist atleast once. The only time you see the male body objectified here is when Arjun and Tia attend a body building contest and laugh as a friend jiggles his chest on stage. Speaking of objectification, Mandakini makes a come back as a laminated cutout!
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None of the actors look like they have strolled into a set to act for the day. They are like water colour tints that blur into each other’s lives and stories. Leading this pack are Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah, two solid, wonderfully nuanced actors. And what they get to do here is way beyond the one-dimensional portrayals of heads of the great Indian cinematic family. They are people who cannot recognise each other or themselves. They are reactive, defensive, volatile and constantly need their children to pull them back from ugly spats. And the two actors live Harsh and Sunita from inside out. Their emotions though raw never become hyperbolic.
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Watch Kapoor as he tries to hold his wife’s shoulder for a family portrait and she shrugs. This one moment sums up the discomfort and unease that seeps into relationships of a lifetime when trust is broken, respect lost. This is an actor who never rubs your nose into a moment, no matter how charged it is. Ratna is pitch perfect whether she is cooking in her cluttered kitchen like an overstretched homemaker, or speaking in taut silences or breaking down over a jar of cookies or curling up in her bed right at the end to contain her pain, to numb it somehow.
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Everything is good for entertainment. But vulgarity, cheap jokes???? Ali Bhutt laughs “Chhota Hai”… Then Bra jokes .. literally showing bra in hands of both…??? r these cheap humor needed?
sure, that too was part of the narrative…but I guess the strengths registered far more than the failings. Films are a subjective experience afterall.. 🙂
Somehow Reema, you pen exactly what we feel! Having had watched the movie on Saturday, my daughter’s first comment at the end was, “I did not want it to end”. Today in office what I told my friends is another thing u mentioned i.e – there is no hero-heroine, each character is equally important like each colour on the canvas. I too felt that its the coming of age movie for Dharma Production. It was a wonderful movie, with no loud over acted portions. A real treat to watch!
:)))