Hindi film industry is known for blindly following a trend till it starts getting lukewarm response from the viewers or plain duds at the box office. The latest trend among them is of making films on small town realistic stories featuring a big star, which at times also talk about a government initiative in order to have an added advantage.
Regular releases have been there in the last few years in this particular genre that at present is on the verge of getting repetitive/overused by the mainstream Hindi filmmakers themselves. In fact, the trailers of such films don’t excite the viewers anymore unless they have some unique never before kind of features in their chosen subjects (largely preferred to be comic).
Sadly, the same is the case with this week’s SUI DHAAGA, which neither had any promising or convincing promos nor is any exceptionally executed film having a strong vision. Revolving around a lower middle class family and a young married couple trying to earn through their own small-time business of sewing clothes, it’s a simple but vaguely written and conceived project, probably by a team that only knew or searched about these small-town people and their living patterns, without having any practical first-hand experience of their own.
(*Mild Spoilers Ahead)
The various sequences in its story progression clearly reveal the fact like the over the top humiliation at the marriage, venue of allotment of sewing machine, the state of dispensary where both humans and animals are treated together, the travel from NCR to Delhi’s CP on cycle, the instant sale of maxis to the patients in the hospital and later entry in the fashion world, written and presented in a too casual way lacking conviction. A particular sequence even shows that a person can begin any small time work at the roadside or under a tree in a city like Delhi without any issue, whereas even a beggar here cannot move to a new venue in the capital, without permission of the local roadside mafia.
Moreover, it’s quite hilarious to see everything happening around a maxi in the hospital and then an established designer stealing the design of the same, becoming the most pathetic part of the film. The energyless compositions remain the other weakest feature of the project despite fine lyrics along with a less convincing and predictable storyline. Written and directed by Sharat Katariya, the film begins on an unexciting note and then keeps moving around the same with no change or progress right till the final 20 minutes. The character fail to establish any emotional connect with the viewers (which has to be the most important element of such films) and the only connect happens in the last half an hour that again doesn’t have anything realistically believable (particularly the clothes showcased in the fashion show).
If truth be told, SUI DHAAGA honestly looks like a MADE TO ORDER film trying to encash the latest trend of the industry, focusing on a government initiative featuring a star, who is supposed to be doing a risky role, entirely different from his set, successful image.
With that taking us to the performances, there are no complaints from anyone else playing their parts really well including the impressive Anushka Sharma, Raghuvir Yadav and Yamini Das (the mother), except Varun Dhawan, who tries his best but never looks like the character he is playing, putting extra efforts making it completely forced or superficial. Largely considered as the modern-age Govinda, Varun doesn’t come up with the realistic innocence Govinda displayed in his roles in SWARG and more. So where Anushka majorly manages to act real, Varun keeps overdoing it right from the first scene till the last, making an untimely recovery in the final scenes.
Overall, when you intentionally try to make it real, then it actually moves far away from reality as witnessed in SUI DHAAGA, a mostly disappointing film that also doesn’t highlight the MAKE IN INDIA drive in any impressive or worth noticing manner. So you can make your individual choice keeping in mind that it did have the Amazon Prime logo in the beginning.
Ratings - 2 / 5
