“Main Kar sakti hai!”
Tumhari Sullu’ is the story of Sulochana (Sullu played by Vidya Balan), a happy go lucky home maker, who loves her family, enjoys every small moment of her life like sitting on the loft in afternoon shooing birds and believes that she is a winner! Sulu boasts of achievements of being the runner-up in the lemon-spoon race, winner of the residential society’s Best Mom contest, winning pressure cookers and utensils in random lucky draws and the likes.
However she is
constantly reminded of her failures by her father and sisters. We learn that
she failed in her Class XII exams not once but twice. The third time around she
fell in love and got married and could never complete her studies. But that
doesn’t stop her from dreaming and making big in her life!
And then, her life
turns into a roller-coaster ride when she arrives at a radio station to collect
a prize – another pressure cooker. She learns of an opening for the role of an
RJ, and in no time she grabs the opportunity. Her distinct seductive voice, uncanny
charm and quirk attitude gets her the job.
On the other hand living
with her is a husband (played by Manav Kaul) who works in a shirt-manufacturing
film staffed almost exclusively by markedly old people. We see Ashok refereeing
a fight between two ancient tailors while the watchman is too old to stay
awake, sitting in front of ads clearly made in the seventies. His job is so
demonstrably dead-end that he is working for men who may as well be dead, and
yet he is - as his wife lovingly says - a cow. He massages her feet after a
long day, yelps when she hits him, and when he isn't applauding her, she loses
at musical chairs. This is a warm relationship full of unselfconscious behavior
and the kind of bedroom banter we rarely see on screen, one built on years of
in-jokes and knowing winks.
Manav’s understated
performance, offers a perfect fit in for Vidya’s charming presence. He flaunts
his powerful acting skills even when his character turns a typical male
chauvinist, who is insecure of an independent wife and fights with her simply
because she is stepping out of the house to work.
The best part of
Tumhari Sulu is that all characters have been written well, and don't just sit
on the sidelines, waiting for their next dialogue. Neha Dhupia is surprisingly
good as the tough boss. Also I loved Vijay Maurya who plays a
self-styled revolutionary poet forced to write jingles, his reactions are
simply lovable.
Tumhari Sulu certainly
has its moments and the first half is really well done but somewhere the second
half fails to sustain the brilliance. I feel the director wanted to include
many things from showing middle class sub urban life, feminism, carefree woman
who could juggle between her personal and professional life, reality that to in
light end I just 2 hours. So at the end I felt cheated and incomplete where she
just gives in and deviates from “Main kar sakti hai”.
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