Sharmila Tagore and Manoj Bajpayee in a still from ‘Gulmohar’
| Photo Credit: PTI
A polished piece of family drama that is driven by identifiable characters and well-crafted performances, Gulmohar is akin to that kind of tree that is trimmed more regularly than watered by the gardener. It looks good but doesn’t always feel right.
Dysfunctional families provide rich material for cinematic narratives. The lives of the bickering Batras are no different but they do it with the remarkable restraint of upper-class Delhi. There are no overtly dramatic flourishes, just life as it is. As their Gulmohar villa is being brought down to give way to a high rise, the family meets up for one last party before the packers and movers take over. However, over the course of ghazal and gossip, the discordant notes in their relationships get exposed and one gets sucked into their tumultuous present and turbulent past. The postcards of memories are riddled with cryptic messages on the destiny that director and co-writer Rahul V Chittella pass on to us.
Gulmohar (Hindi)
Director: Rahul V. Chittela
Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Sharmila Tagore, Amol Palekar, Simran, Suraj Sharma
Runtime: 131 minutes
Synopsis: As the Batra family prepares to shift from their family house to a new place, the frayed relationships come out in the open.
Chittella has assisted Mira Nair in the past and one could sense the vibe of Monsoon Wedding in Gulmohar. Here instead of an impending wedding, the fractures in the family are exposed when the Batras decide to shift from their family residence to a new abode. The house shift becomes an opportunity to clear the cobwebs in the relationships. Beyond the main strand, Chittella and co-writer Arpita Mukherjee reflect on the changes in the social strata that serve the affluent class and hint at the role of ideological shifts in the response to family politics. In Kusum, the head of the family, her son Arun, and brother-in-law Sudhakar, we could see three world views, and the fourth one, in the form of her grandson Aditya, is a work in progress.
It is good to see the seasoned Sharmila Tagore return to the screen after almost a decade and effortlessly charm her way through an eclectic ensemble cast in a role that is tailor-made for her. As the progressive matriarch Kusum, she is neither wilted by the past nor held back by conservative tradition. The dimples are intact and so is the grace. More importantly, her performance has not become dated.
Manoj Bajpayee has an innate ability to open up the inner recesses of the mind and heart of the character on screen. Here, as Kusum’s son Arun, he squeezes out the emotional pus that Arun has been carrying for years when the will of his deceased father suddenly pricks his latent anxieties and fears. Bajpayee gets the right measure of the knots that the in-between generation carries beneath an industrious personality and his scenes with Tagore are a treat to watch.
A couple of weeks after Farzi, Amol Palekar as the self-seeking brother-in-law of Kusum, renders yet another efficient turn, this time speckled with shades of gray. But for me, the surprise is Simran as the brick of the house that could carry weight more than its tensile strength. The way she navigates between her imposing mother-in-law and the doting but complex-ridden husband is absolutely relatable.
The younger cast is not bad either, particularly Shanty Balachandran as the housemaid Reshma, considering they have not been given much to play with. Suraj Sharma doesn’t have much to do as the son of Arun who wants to ‘start up’ in life on his own terms but can’t exactly spell them out.
Sometimes, Gulmohar gives an impression that the writers are indulging in a lot of philosophising on life and relationships instead of allowing the characters to find a way out themselves. The positioning of a same-sex relationship and an inter-faith bond blossoming in the Gulmohar villa is not intricately woven into the story and remains only adsorbed on the surface. At times, the makers seem more interested in creating match-ups between the sterling actors rather than scratching a little more to expose the wounds so that the healing could be experienced a little more.
Gulmohar is currently streaming on Disney + Hotstar.
