Cast: Sridevi, Adil Hussain, Mehdi Nebbou
Director: Gauri Shinde
They say you have to listen to your wife as she is mostly right. We say that is not true and don’t follow it. But once in a while, we listen to our wives. The results may be disastrous on a mother-in-lawesque level. Or it may give more credibility to the initial statement.
My wife wanted me to go on a family trip to see English Vinglish (EV). I didn’t. But you loved Sridevi, she said. Of course, I did; and I still do. But I never said that about Sridevi’s movies. All my friends who saw the movie said she acted very well. Honey, I could have told that to your friends, without even seeing the movie. However, a bunch of veiled threats, not-so-veiled promises, a sense of thorough boredom and a desire to put in place an offspring who rudely dished my quite-decent apparel made me take that trip. And yes, I was glad I did.
A title like English Vinglish gives away the plot like nobody’s business. Someone who doesn’t know the Queen’s tongue, trying to learn it. Cue jokes over grammar, pronunciations, adjectives, etc. Yet, EV succeeds not with what it dishes out, but where it holds back. And that restraint comes as a great breath of fresh air.
Shashi (Sridevi) is a normal housewife and mother. Her life revolves around her husband Satish (Hussain), her young daughter and son and her mother in law. Once her family chores are done she makes laddos and other sweets (“snacks” as she calls them) and sells them to neighbourhood customers. A perfectly happy life, you could say, but for the small matter that Shashi can barely string together an entire sentence in English. A source of embarrassment to her daughter, patronization for her husband and regret for Shashi herself.
Then comes a phone call that changes everything. Shashi’s elder sister Manu (Sujata Kumar), settled in the US, wants Shashi to go there to help with her daughter’s wedding. A very nervous Shashi boards the plane to Manhattan, a few weeks before the wedding, with her family expected to join her later. There, a run in with those rude Americanos, convinces Shashi she has to join up for a learn-to-Speak-English-in-Four-Weeks course.
Here is where the movie could have become another Mind Your Language clone. It doesn’t. Oh, the stereotypes are there all right. But they don’t feel so. Writer-director Gauri Shinde may have taken them straight off the Handbook of Clichéd Characters, but she invests so much pathos and humanity in them that we empathise with them. We have the Pakistani taxi driver, the Tamilian software engineer, the Mexican maid, the cute Oriental, the silent African and the good-looking Frenchman. Their language woes are many, but you do not want to laugh at them, even if they laugh at themselves. In the company of these slightly troubled souls, especially the poor besotted Frenchman Laurent (Nebbou) Shashi learns a little bit about life and a lot about herself.
This is a filmmaker’s movie all the way. Gauri Shinde has crafted a simple movie that touches the right tone pretty much most of the time. She made a light, accessible film. It is brings forth knowing smiles, rather than full-throated laughs. It points out faults, but is never mean. It tackles a few tricky topics but not at the risk of alienating viewers. It has a message and delivers it without being preachy. At no point does this appear to be a debut film.
The advantage of a largely unknown cast is the chances are they will all be good actors. And they are. Right down to the young child actors. Then there is the incomparable Sridevi. She was the reigning queen of Indian popular cinema until she chose to walk away. Amidst the dancing skills and sex appeal was usually forgotten an extremely gifted artiste, one of the best comediennes this country has seen. Most of her films needed histrionics and flamboyance. Here she shows that she is extremely capable of restraint and years away from the marquee lights have not dimmed that a bit. And for someone at the cusp of 50, she looks fabulous.
EV may have three songs too many, but that shouldn’t detract it from its achievements. After all it does have the best cameo in a Hindi film in ages! It maybe early days yet, by Gauri Shinde’s debut, with its simplicity and sincerity, its search for a little more goodness among essentially decent people harks back to a world created by the incomparable Hrishikesh Mukherjee. For that alone, she deserves all the bouquets she will get. And, of course, she made us fall for Sridevi yet again.
