Page 120 - October 2018 converted

Sui Dhaaga
movie cast:
Varun Dhawan, Anushka Sharma, Raghubir Yadav, Namit Das

Director:
Sharat Katariya
Review:
Sui Dhaaga delivers exactly what it promises: a tale stitched

together with ‘sui-dhaaga’, dipped in desi ‘silaai’ and ‘kadhaai’.
Small-town town couple wins big, pushing aside wily, wicked,
unscrupulous townies and greedy rivals: the film’s single-point
agenda is drenched in both sweetness and earnestness. The
only trouble with the film is its total predictability: you know
what’s coming miles before the characters do.
That Mauji (Dhawan) and Mamta (Sharma) will become partners

in their own enterprise which involves sewing machines and
design wizardry and indomitable will, is something we know
right when the film opens.
The constantly complaining elderly father (Yadav) retiring
from a no-account job, the always delivering homilies homely

movie review

It’s not as if Dhawan hasn’t tried his best to become Mauji. With
each appearance, his level of commitment is clearly on the

upside, and he is a very likeable actor, striving to win us over,
if he does miss a couple of beats here and there. Sharma is
excellent, from the arranging of the ‘pallu’ on the head just so,
to some of her fulsome exchanges with Dhawan: the kindling of
feeling between the two – something people who live in cramped
quarters in joint families will immediately cotton on to – is one of
mother, the elder brother with a shrewish wife, will first put up the highlights of the film. But there’s altogether too much of the
resistance to the younger son and daughter-in-law’s plan to let’s-berate-the-feckless-and-foolish-Mauji-and-Mamta-ki-jodi
better their collective future, and after several easy conflicts, among the family: that’s the flat, repetitive part of the film.
will become cheerleaders for Team Sui Dhaaga. This we also As has become almost the norm these days, the solid supporting
know. cast deserves a film of their own. Yadav, the veteran, is of

What I was expecting was a little more surprise, and yes, a little course the stand-out. So are the actors who play the dumpy
more fun, given Sharat Katariya’s utterly captivating previous mother, and the USA-returned designer who steals from ‘desi’
outing Dum Laga Ke Haisha, which had so many unexpected talent in the art of self-promotion. And a bunch of other parts.
touches that were pure pleasure. Could it be that there was Sui Dhaaga is well made. It’s nice and safe and staid. There
more leeway possible with the practically new leads of Dum, are several moments that warm the heart, and you cheer when
and the big stars in Sui Dhaaga made it a more careful film? sui-dhaaga win over needle-and-thread. But you always knew
Or was it because the idea flowed from a ‘sarkari , sanskari’ they were going to, didn’t you?

programme?

120 |DALLAS | OCTOBER 2018 | VOL 157 www.thebmagazine.com