Hot take: Badhaai Ho

‘Badhaai Ho' (2018) is a surprisingly quiet film about a family struggling to cope with a woman's late pregnancy. The premise is threadbare and the screenplay is a bit stretched, but this is a triumph of stellar acting performances and a director's gentle vision. The set design and costumes give us a small-town Delhi that feels lived in, and the local flavour comes through right down to the various dialects we see being used. I must admit that not being familiar with north India, some of these aspects were totally lost on me, including some of the dialogues which I couldn't decipher. Bonus points must be handed for an effective soundtrack that underscores the film at just the right places, giving heft to a thin storyline.

Ayushmann Khurrana puts in a charming yet understated performance as the embarrassed son while Sanya Malhotra is eminently likeable as his upper-class girlfriend. The great strength of this film is that it doesn't have a preachy tone and never gives us character turnabouts or redemptions that don't seem natural or true to life. For instance, the much-lauded scene where the ever-crotchety mother-in-law comes to her daughter-in-law's aid when she is being humiliated is still followed by her wishing aloud for a boy child to carry on the family line. These are real people with real prejudices, but the writers and directors give them scope to grow even within the confines of their societal roles.

Even though the film is purportedly a story about a middle class family overcoming their shame, it is most compelling as a love story between an older couple, something we see too little of in the testosterone-age of youth-fuelled passion. A stolen poem and many long looks between Gajraj Rao and Neena Gupta tell of more romance than any frothy rom-com. This is a love story that has stood the test of time, and one that cinema would do well to celebrate more often.

Genre: Comedy, Social drama

Language: Hindi

Runtime: 2h 4min

Year of release: 2018

Streaming platform: Disney+ Hotstar

Hot take is a series in which I offer my first impressions of films from India and around the world.