[English Vinglish] : Family, respect and Laddoo
Tags: Bollywood, Drama, English Language, English Medium School

[English Vinglish] : Family, respect and Laddoo

Director: Gauri Shinde

Genre: Drama, comedy

Year: 2012

Runtime: 129 minutes

Verdict: 7/10

The fact that 80% of the audience waited till the end of the credits and clapped soon after, tells you enough about the movie. It not only conveys the mass appeal but also confirms that the movie without cheesy romance, Swiss landscapes, bullet time action or car chases has something in it so much as everyone in the theater can identify with the characters. Gauri Shinde’s debut attempt English Vinglish is such a tale of success.

Shashi Godbole is an amiable housewife. A mother of two who is excellent cook is fully engrossed in her happy family life. Both her children go to English medium school and her husband apparently works in a multinational firm. There is a slight smudge in her otherwise content lifestyle; she is not very good in English language. From time and again she has to face embarrassments due her inability to converse proficiently in English. She gets humiliated by her daughter who does not want to take her to PTA meeting, her husband who takes her for granted all the time. She has an elder sister who lives in Manhattan. She invites Shashi to US to help set up and manage her daughter’s wedding. Skeptical and apprehensive somehow Shashi manages to reach US. While in the city, she spots an advertisement of an English class, one which claims to make you confident in the language in 4 weeks. She enrolls for the classes and that’s where the movie starts.

I remember one remarkable TV programs from my childhood, Jaban Sambhalke. First when I saw promos of this movie, I thought it would be an amplified version of the same. Gladly I was proved to be wrong. Not that the idea of Jaban Sambhalke wouldn’t have put the movie together, but thankfully the movie doesn’t stop at that. Along with the main theme of the movie, it also touches some important aspects like self-respect, a housewife’s role in Indian society and family values. The ending speech which she delivers in almost fluent English is a really a remarkable piece of writing, and she delivers it aptly. Her speech reflects her thoughts on family values, respect and togetherness. As the movie progresses the script develops a lot more characteristics, all the while keeping the main theme in the spotlight. Though I claim how the movie has more to it than just a woman trying to learn English, the movie wishes to be taken as a light comedy. It gives the message subtly without disturbing its playful comic charm.

Language barrier has its own comic sentiment. You generally do not have to do much struggle to come up with a cracker. At least someone in the crowd enjoys the despair others are in when they try to speak alien language. Here the movie steers clear of such kind of humor. You do not see many instances where you find yourself laughing at accents, mispronunciations and wrong meanings. In fact her last stand about talking in Hindi with the air hostess gives a perfect punchline. Reminds me of my post about languages

Recently I had ranted about the lack of quality actresses in Bollywood. With the current landscape I wish to take my words back. Till a couple of years back, it was nearly impossible feat for a lead actress to be the entertainer or crowd puller for a movie, someone on whom the producers and directors would bank on for the movie’s success. We indeed were desperately searching for a lady of the house who could take the responsibility of the movie’s success on her shoulders. The times seem changing now. Today we have Vidya Balan, who has given hits like Kahani, Dirty Picture, Parineeta. We have Rani Mukharjee who gave us Black, Priyanka gave us 7 Khoon Maaf and now Shridevi with English Vinglish. The future seems even brighter when you try to look at the subjects of these movies. For heroes who have single handedly pulled a movie (read: Dabangg, Singham and its siblings) the concept appears to be very superficial or even trivial; most of the times with the only purpose of entertainment. When you look at the movies mentioned above, we see a wide spectrum of concepts, ranging from thriller to biopic. The audience has treated them well and that’s a really comforting change.

Having said all that lets put a few words to the facts which I didn’t like much about the movie. Mind you that these are very trivial compared to the praise I’ve already bestowed on it. Also I’m putting up a spoiler alert warning in this last paragraph as well. Although Shridevi has quite perfectly presented a person who cannot speak English, she fails at fluent Hindi sometimes, let alone Marathi. A person named Godbole, would never speak accented Hindi, nor would she name her daughter Sapna. (I’d have agreed on Swapna much easily). Hence I keep wondering if Madhuri Dixit would have suited better for that role. Another turn off for me was that the side story with a French fellow student, it had a romantic ring to it. He is portrayed a cook, so his interest in her cooking skills could have been a sufficiently good sub story rather than to make him romantically involved in her.

Though these factors were trivial I somehow could not skip them in this post. Overall I did enjoy the English classes; it did teach me something more than a language; worth a watch.