Sui Dhaaga
Director - Sharat Katariya
Cast - Varun Dhawan, Anushka Sharma
Rating - 2/5
What makes a tailor special? There are tailors who have a knack for hiding curves, those who achieve mastery over seamless sewing, those who establish a rollicking rapport with their customers, fast ones who can stitch a school’s worth of uniforms in one night, and those who — as we saw in the recent hit, Stree — can measure ladies from a distance, merely by looking at them.
Sharat Katariya’s Sui Dhaaga tells us Mauji, played by Varun Dhawan, is special — just because he is played by Varun Dhawan. There is no discernible talent or specialisation to what he does, and this could have been potentially interesting: a hero without heroics. Unfortunately, this character is trapped in a depressingly dull film. Sui Dhaaga is so predictable that the theatrical trailer beats the film. Also, the trailer doesn’t have groan-worthy lines like “do rupaye mein bik gaye, Mamta” — “we have sold ourselves for two rupees, Mamta” — plus it gets over quick. The film takes over two hours to stitch together the same blasted story.
Watch the Sui Dhaaga trailer here
Entrepreneurship can lead to stirring cinema. One of the most enjoyable examples was Band Baaja Baaraat, starring Dhawan’s co-star Anushka Sharma. So fierce was Sharma that her character embodied the serrated Hindi word for it — ‘farratedaar’ — and the film about wedding planners gave wings to young audiences. There is no such inspiration or insight to be found in this by-the-numbers affair. Sui Dhaaga is well acted, but films need more than flavour to stay afloat. This film is as exciting as embroidery — as exciting as watching a shirt-pocket get monogrammed monogrammed with a familiar logo, to be precise. It’s barely a Baaja.
Directors seem to have realised that Dhawan looks good working quietly, which is why — like in the marvellous October earlier this year — they make him silently clean, make tea, sew. Katariya’s film, however, also makes him red-eyed. Dhawan’s character Mauji is meant to be a happy-go-lucky fellow but is always shown to us flustered, to the point of sobbing. Maybe he doesn’t like that sweater-vest and Manoj Prabhakar moustache.
Sharma, meanwhile, is made to simper. She plays a crucial role, the wife who allows her husband to soar: he only dares to dream because she dares him to. She’s a special actress, and the two of them work very well together, with him selling the injuries while she sells the anguish. Also, after being mousy throughout the film, her smile in the final act is fittingly, blindingly bright. Veteran Raghubir Yadav does exceedingly well as Dhawan’s disgruntled father, and Namit Das — who also features in this week’s other release, Pataakha — has fun with his character, one who tickles people as hard as he laughs at his own jokes.
Without question, the film’s finest performance comes from Yamini Das, as Dhawan’s mother. She is a mother who runs her house on autopilot, and can’t let go of instructions or kitchen utensils even when she’s collapsed from a heart attack. She chides her husband for crying over television soaps when he can’t bear them, but later allows him to recap to her those very shows she doesn’t really care about.
Katariya’s films have interesting, nuanced asides and routinely good dialogues, but despite all that this film doggedly refuses to get interesting. The background score balloons in orchestral style when things are sad, and becomes merrily desi whenever things on screen should be celebrated. Lyricist Varun Grover writes some simply evocative lines, though I found it interesting that this proudly make-in-India film chose Anu Malik, a composer known for making knock-offs of better, more established products and defiantly appropriating them.
Sui Dhaaga is a feel-good film about dignity of labour, and the honest toil of a hard-working tailor. Too bad it feels machine-made.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
First Published: Sep 28, 2018 14:57 IST