A film for someone we all know...

Sridevi’s done it, oh yes she has…in a film that rests solely on her shoulders, playing a character that proudly claims her age and with the aid of no dance-numbers. Now how many comebacks can boast of that? None that we remember. In an era where comebacks almost always spell big, bigger, biggest…Sridevi chose a role that has substance over glamour. 

We don’t mean to sound so giddy, but in between fighting back tears, laughter and rolling on the floor…Sridevi took us on a rollercoaster into a world where good films don’t have a formula or 100 crore tags…they just make do with scripts that make sense, a story that needs telling, handled in a manner that could potentially describe the word mature.

Sridevi plays Shashi Godbole…a loveable, doing right by everyone housewife who spends her days making life comfortable for her family and her spare time dishing out gourmet delights. Only all she gets in return is mirth from her husband because just how difficult can making ladoos be and disgust from her daughter who thinks of her mother’s non-english speaking skills as potent embarrassment.

It really hits home because really haven’t we all seen this everyday everywhere…husbands not taking their brimming with wives talent seriously, a cringe here and there when you hear or see English misspelt or god forbid mispronounced. These people are you and these people are me, who’ve made language a meter of judging our ‘coolness’.

Sridev and Dreamboat (Mehdi Nebbou)

A family wedding take Shashi to New York and a humiliating incident in a café later, she joins English-speaking classes. Amongst people from different walks of life and countries, Shashi learns the language and more importantly the confidence to not really care about a thing like language. 

She also learns how to love herself, thanks to French classmate and chef Laurent (with someone who looks like Laurent, we’d be willing to learn Newton’s laws). Director Gauri Shinde has cast Mehdi Nebbou, a French-Algerian actor so right, you want Sridevi to not do the ‘right’ thing in the end…oh well a girl can always dream right?

Full marks have to be awarded to the casting of English Vinglish. Absolutely no one is a sore thumb, even the sole cameo (Amitabh Bachchan) is such an apt fit. The only disappointment, and we really had to scrounge around for this one, is the music. The supremely talented Amit Trivedi delivers some pretty lacklustre fare, that doesn’t really connect in an otherwise emotional story.     

If this is Gauri Shinde’s first film and if this is what she can do with it, oh boy gimme more!