Eta Amader Golpo review: Saswata Chatterjee and Aparajita Adhya shine bright in Manasi Sinha’s directorial debut

3/5

Eta Amader Golpo story: 

Pravin Sharma (Saswata Chatterjee) falls in love with Sritama (Aparajita Adhya). They meet at an elderly laughing club. Pravin woos Sritama (and that is one of the brightest highlights of the film) after their class, on their way home. After an initial resistance, Sritama – a mother of two – reciprocates and decides to marry him. She lives with her son (played by Debdut Ghosh), daughter-in-law Tareen Jahan, and granddaughter Joyee (Puja Karmakar). How these two lovebirds manoeuvre through their families and social prejudices is what Eta Amader Golpo is all about.

Eta Amader Golpo review:

Seasoned actress Manasi Sinha stepped in the direction with a simple and easy-flowing family drama. She could have picked a safe story following social conventions. However, Eta Amader Golpo is ‘woke’ and sweet. 

Here, two elderly people fall in love. They see some encouragement, a bit of trauma, and a lot of bewilderment. This is not the first film that delves into elderly people falling in love. There are examples in Indian cinema. In fact, Bengali films have also trodden the path. This one is rather sweet in nature and balances out being preachy with its humour in the first half.

Mr Sharma is a Punjabi man while Sritama is a Tagore-loving Bengali woman. They leave their cultural baggage aside and fall in love for companionship during the latter laps of their lives. That is pretty brave. Saswata is fascinating in his performance. He brings Mr Sharma’s effortless conviction and humour organically. Aparajita is often given loud characters. In this film, she is subtle and beautiful.

Through the characters of Debdut Ghosh and Tareen Jahan, we see some stereotypes attached to Bengali saas-bahu. However, they performed well. It was interesting to see Saswata, Koneenica Banerjee, Sohag Sen, Arya Dasgupta, and Amitkanti Ghosh play Punjabi characters and they look fine.

The film falters in the later half with its slow pace and fairly predictable ending. Also, certain characters join in and they seem too good to be true. The problem with the film is perhaps it lacks nuances and becomes a tad too simplistic.

Eta Amader Golpo verdict:

At a time when family dramas are outright regressive, Eta Amader Golpo is a lovely break. It is surely not the bravest or the boldest film around, but it portrays the love story of two elderly people with all honesty. Manasi Sinha is largely successful in bringing the audience back to theatres with her debut film and that calls for a toast.