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Disney + Hotstar’s latest offering Hum Do Hamare Do takes the popular family planning slogan and reimagines the concept of family. Does it work? Read on to find out….
We’ve all seen the logo growing up—the inverted red triangle and an outline sketch of two parents and two children, one of each gender, the benchmark of the “ideal” family in India. This 2021 film, starring an impressive cast of award-winning actors, flips the script on its head and has an adult child creating his family from scratch. It questions the unchallenged bedrock of Indian society: the family—what is it, how it comes about, and what if it could deviate from the norm?
So far, so good.
With actors like Ratna Pathak Shah, Paresh Rawal and Rajkumar Rao, you know you’re in for a treat. Mimi actress Kriti Sanon delivers as well, hemmed-in as she is by her vacuous, limited role. Where the film fails utterly is in its script, more flaccid than a three-day-old bhajiya, and far less palatable.
With its implausible storyline, half-baked backstories and undeveloped character arcs, what could have been a deeply satisfying narrative about older love turns into a circus of banal side plots, OTT extras and painful attempts at humor. Even as the director plants the seed, he utterly fails to water it and bring the film to fruition.
This film could have so much more to offer if it had explored the story arc of the older couple, rather than spotlighting one more young love story. Boy meets girl, random misunderstanding ensues, boy always finds it cute, and three frames later, it’s luuhve. Makes you wonder what it is about a man’s brain that unfailingly draws him toward stupid behavior in a woman and convinces him this is the Real Deal.
Meanwhile, even as we are on this bumpy merry-go-round of a comedy of one too many errors, one can’t help but wonder: what was Purushottam and Dipti’s early story? What made them want to be together? Why did he not show up for her? How did that abandonment redirect the course of her life, and how did she process the pain? What other griefs from other broken relationships do they carry?
Older adults provide such incredible fodder for cinematic exploration, by virtue of having a greater range of lived experiences, emotional depth and rich inner lives. And yet, they have been relegated to has-beens and also-rans by our culture, and by extension, popular media, because of the absurd belief that love and sex are reserved for the young.
And since this well-begun but only half-done film doesn’t call for any further web space, let’s instead revisit five of my favorite older couple narratives in Hindi cinema:
So props to Hum Do Hamare Do’s makers for normalizing romance at every age, but next time around, give us the more interesting love story, even if it doesn’t belong to the zygotes.
Dilnavaz Bamboat's heart occupies prime South Mumbai real estate. The rest of her lives in Silicon Valley, California, where she hikes, reads, hugs redwood trees and raises a pint-sized feminist. She is the read more...
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India Sweets And Spices is a film showcasing a classist NRI society and how the younger generation is trying to break the stereotypes.
I had been waiting to watch Geeta Malik’s India Sweets and Spices ever since it buzzed in the news that the film was being shot in my hometown of Atlanta.
The movie premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York on June 12, and I had the opportunity to watch a film I had been eagerly waiting for.
Noelle Page from The Other Side of Midnight, and Subbu from Aaranya Kandam, tell young women that "it's a man’s world, but you still have the power to bend it your way."
Noelle Page from The Other Side of Midnight, and Subbu from Aaranya Kandam, tell young women that “it’s a man’s world, but you still have the power to bend it your way.”
Feminism. The practically infamous F word that makes people uncomfortable within just seconds. Not just men, but everyone who has internalized patriarchy in general feels so threatened, that they do not even want to listen.
There are women who spend their whole lives trying to make something of themselves, standing up for themselves and their rights. But no matter how hard they try, there’s still an underlying tone of ‘rebellion’ in this progress and it is brushed off as being ‘arrogant’.
Hum Paanch, one of the most popular serials of the nineties, still touches our hearts with its feminist portrayal of girls as they really are.
In the midst of the current saas bahu sagas where the ‘adarsh bahu’ is mostly shown as someone who is a sexist society’s dream come true, the empowering yet fun TV serials of yesteryear such as Hum Paanch makes us yearn for the days gone by.
So, when the cast recently decided to reunite after two decades to create a special episode, it surely warmed the cockles of our hearts. Hum Paanch was one of those serials that received a cult status with its content which everyone in the family found relatable and endearing.
Actor, Singer, Poet – the multi-faceted Andrea Jeremiah discusses the social responsibility of cinema, how she chooses her roles, and her struggle with patriarchy in the film industry, in an interview at the recently held Bangalore Poetry Festival.
Andrea Jeremiah thoroughly surprised me. Given her presence as a well-known actor in the Tamil film industry, the candour and humility with which she spoke to me was refreshing.
The multi-talented actor and musician revealed yet another gift of hers at the Bangalore Poetry Festival, when her self-published book of poetry, Broken Wing was made available for sale at the venue. During her session at the festival with Author Anuja Chandramauli, Andrea disclosed that writing came to her more as an emotional catharsis; she says it was something spontaneous that helped her find solace during some of the darkest phases of her life.