The Great Indian Family review: Good on paper, not so great on screen
The Great Indian Family
At the onset, Yash Raj Film's latest production The Great Indian Family(TGIF), featuring Vicky Kaushal in the lead, holds a lot of potential. It is a dramedy that not only highlights India's diversity but also talks of joint families in small-town India who fight, laugh, and cry together under the same roof. A tried and tested trope that has worked in several films. But 112-minute long film, helmed by Vijay Krishna Acharya, never really manages to create an impact despite a well-intended script and a credible cast.
Vicky Kaushal plays Ved Vyas Tripathi aka Bhajan Kumar, a gifted singer who belongs to a family of Hindu priests. Ved is part of a large joint family where his father Siyaram Tripathi (Kumud Mishra) is one of the most respected priests of the town they live in (fictitious town Balrampur). Things are mostly hunky dory for Ved who is a local star thanks to his family's clout and his gifted voice. He and his father are envied by rival priest Mishra (Yashpal Sharma) and his son who are constantly engaged in a war of upmanship with Ved's family.
Things turn awry when one fine day an anonymous letter lands up at the Tripathi household which claims that Ved is not really related to the family by blood and was born to a Muslim family. It was at his birth that someone had changed his birth certificate to make him Siyaram's son.
In a devout Hindu family, which treats its son as a prince, this information changes dynamics. And so Ved's uncle (Manoj Pahwa) advises him to sit out his next music performance in order to control the rumours around his lineage. Ved though is hurt and decides to walk out and start living in a Muslim family only to realise a thing or two about the community which he has been taught to loathe since birth.
On paper, the script may have held a lot of potential but Acharya who also serves as the writer of the film implements it half-heartedly. The film starts off in a light way, meanders through some inane plot points and then lands heavily on drama. By the end, it becomes a preachy story about communal harmony that doesn't offer anything that has not been told already.
The film has Vicky Kaushal delivering an earnest performance as Ved Vyas. Kaushal is a talented actor and has proved his mettle in several films. He attempts to take the film forward and his comic timing is perfect. The scenes where he tries hard to become Muslim and imbibe the community culture and language are genuinely funny. But these moments are few and far between. Actors like Manoj Pahwa, Yashpal Sharma, and Kumud Mishra are completely wasted in the film. Manushi Chhillar plays Kaushal's love interest and has limited screen time - making her role almost obsolete in the larger picture.
Films based in small-town India have been explored by YRF successfully in the past. Dum Lagake Haisha, Shuddh Desi Romance are just some of the films that were set in north Indian small towns. The Great Indian Family too falls in the same category and takes up a pertinent issue, dresses it up in a dramedy and presents it to the audience with a good cast in tow, yet it fails to create an impact.
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