Sui Dhaagi - all in stitches

 

Sui Dhaagi: Made in India

(Needle and Thread...)

2018, Hindi

Director - Sharat Katariya

Stars - Anushka Sharma, Varun Dhawan, Raghubir Yadav

Mohan's Measure ⭐⭐

One thing should be said at the outright.  Mamta is by far the best performance ever by Ms. Sharma, before or after Sui Dhaagi.   For the better part of this movie, we get to see her in a role far outside her norm, conservative, understated, a routine housewife.  But, her spunk, her determination to make her husband better than he is,  is something which is undeniably Ms. Sharma.  It is a role, however, that most big-name Bollywood divas would have failed at. 

But, succeed she does, and in doing so, enhances and plays straight-man to the charming but bumbling Mauji, played with ease by Mr. Dhawan.

But charming though all this may be, the movie feels forced.  It is a fictional story playing itself out as a biopic, with almost magical conclusions offered to bring an inevitable happy ending.  At the end, I found myself wishing the real characters would emerge like in other biopics, only to be left disappointed.