GOTRO: This movie preaches communal harmony and how humanism overrides gotro or the clan.The movie is very entertaining with drama and comic interludes and a few great songs. Anusua Majumdar(Mukti Devi) plays the matriarch perfectly. She is a Vaishnavite and does Puja every day. Ambarish is a funny priest -he steals the show in every scene. Manali Dey(Jhuma) is the domestic help and she introduces herself ala Sholay’s Basanti. She is very loud and overacts for most of the part. Nigel Akkara(Tareq Ali) is an ex-convict hired as a caretaker for Anusua. Nigel gives a restrained performance-probably he could be a little more expressive.Soon love blooms between Jhuma and Tareq.Tareq helps out Mukti Devi in every possible way who soon acknowledges him as her son never minding the fact that he is a Muslim.Kharaj Mukherjee is a comical villain all set to grab Mukti Devi’s house Gobinda Dham. Santu Mukherjee plays a friend of Mukti Devi. Biswanath shows up in a song sequence. Saheb Chatterjee plays Anirban, the NRI son who cannot stay with his mother and Badshah Maitra plays Ritam the police officer under whom Tareq was jailed. The director could have asked Manali to learn to drive a scooty instead of showing pics on a static bike against moving road images. The ending is predictable but the treatment, the dialogues and the presentation make the movie an enjoyable watch. The songs are quite nice especially “Baishnabo shei jon” and “Hare Krishna Naam Dilo”. There is some product placement -Fortune Kachhi Gani and Senco.The movie tries to make a social comment about how Kolkata is becoming unsafe for the elderly retired population whose children are forced to work outside Kolkata due to the grim economy. Another bravura offering from the stable of Shiboprasad and Nandita.
AninditaRoyMusings 