"It's all about loving your parents" read the tag line from Karan Johar's super duper family blockbuster Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, now a decade and a half later a slightly more grown up, perhaps a slightly more cynical Johar has realized - as all grown ups eventually do - that life isn't perfect nor is it simplistic but that giving meaning to its many challenges, can still be rewarding and fulfilling.
Like this movie, the reality of life is that it is perfectly imperfect, anyone who says otherwise is lying which means a tick next to their name in the imperfect column.
We are defined by our imperfections, those imperfections determine perception, mould parts of our personalities, builds character, and as much as we would like to think we know everything about people we are closest to, how can we even begin to think that when we don't even know the dark secrets and hidden fears and hopes of those very people we live with day in and day out?
Kapoor and Sons established 1921 is a family that is as dysfunctional as most of our own, and no less lovable but what's it about?
Well... Granddaddy (Rishi) Kapoor feigns death so often that his family turn a blind eye every time he keels over and plays dead, until one heart attack too many forces his family to be summoned from different parts of the globe to be with him.
His two grandsons are furthest away. The eldest (Fawad Khan) is an award winning, best selling writer, while the youngster (Sidharth Malhotra) is struggling to make ends meet doubling up as a bartender while pursuing his own writing interests.
A mutual interest in writing is the only thing these two brothers share as the younger brother resents his sibling, and the older brother is just too perfect to even bother finding out why.
Still Grandfather Kapoor's pull is strong and both return to the family home, in evergreen Cunoor, to be greeted by their parents who are having their own issues.
Father (Rajat Kapoor) has fallen on hard times, and is forever bitching about the high cost of living, which has heaped pressure on his wife (Ratna Pathak Shah), who has a scheme that could help her hubby but a lack of encouragement and her own willful procrastination means nothing really comes of it.
On top of that she suspects her husband of having an affair, and displays behavior that borders on paranoia.
Crazy stuff!
Cunoor may be a pretty setting but this home is not a pretty picture, which in reality is all that Grandfather Kapoor wants, he wants just one happy family photo that will have pride of place above his mantle place.
Oh wait there's another spanner to add into the works - the romantic interest (Alia Bhatt), a carefree spirit who sparks something with both the brothers, she leads the elder one on by telling him that she thinks he is "hot", while flirting outrageously with the younger guy.
As if these two already didn't have enough to make them want to wring each other's necks.
Plus there's a body builder with rippling muscles. A likable if highly frustrated photographer awaiting the happy family shot, and the father's supposed mistress, and my sincere apologies in case if I've left anyone out, because the last thing this family needs is to be burdened with more issues.
They have enough to deal with as it is.
They have enough to deal with as it is.
It's actually a simple story, filled with complex situations which all come together to create a perfect storm; a kind of emotional tsunami that wreaks havoc with each and every character and it is skillfully executed in a style that is more akin to Finding Fanny director Homi Adajania than anything that the avoiding fanny Karan Johar has ever done!
I'll stop with the rude jokes, KJo produced it, but it's the director Shakun Batra who should get the kudos for doing a marvelous job in nailing it by giving his cast warm eccentric characters to work with, and the most chaotic situations in which to do so.
This is filmmaking with a wicked edge, and yet it comes with an emotional tug that is unrelenting. It's like a Hollywood film with a Bollywood soul except that's not as flattering as the way I would really like to describe it and that is as a French film with a Bollywood heart, because this film is deserving of flattery.
The cast are exceptional, Rishi Kapoor is made to look 75 with the heart and the libido of a 17 year old, Chintu Baba is now Chintu Dada but the masti hasn't disappeared, he is adorable.
Consumate actors that they are Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah deliver to their usually high standards, and are thoroughly convincing.
Real life lovers Siddharth and Alia have a great chemistry and both delight, while Fawad Khan is exceptional, under played and on the money, what an astute performance.
Kapoor and Son is the kind of movie that'll make you laugh and sniff and giggle and get angry and want to rage at someone and want to cuddle someone but it'll leave you with a reassuring glow that the art of story telling is alive and well, all it needs is to be in capable hands and when it comes to the art of family no one does it better than Karan Johar's Dharma Productions.
Go see it. It's imperfect but perfectly so and so well worth seeing!
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