One Careful Owner movie review: An affecting tale of friendship and the inevitability of death

3/5

Story: Life insurance executive Sara is keen on investing in a new apartment that is being sold for a pittance. She is impressed with the spacious house with vintage partitions and secret closets, but there is only one clincher. She will not be able to move in until the septuagenarian owner of the house, Lola, passes away.

Babumushoi, zindagi badi honi chahiye … lambi nahin” (Anand, 1971)

Many moons ago, when Rajesh Khanna uttered these words on the silver screen, he drove generations to shed copious amounts of tears. When Shah Rukh Khan cheekily declared “jiyo, haso, muskurao, kya pata kal ho na ho,” cinephiles shuddered at the thought of seeing his character, so full of vitality, succumbing to death.

Death is the constant companion in One Careful Owner. It looms large over the narrative, with its septuagenarian protagonist going coffin shopping and writing her epitaph on Christmas. Yet, One Careful Owner toes the line of sentimentality and cheekiness with gentle ease. Sara (Juana Acosta), a 39-year-old woman working at a life insurance company, decides she wants to buy a new apartment. Her marriage is just about hanging by a thread; while she maintains nothing is particularly wrong in her marriage, she is unsure if she is still in love with her husband. Enter Lola (Kiti Mánver), the sassy, pot-smoking, alcohol-soaked owner of the apartment. She has survived three bypass heart surgeries. But nothing can really stop Lola from digging into a helping of honey-laced pastries and fresh cupcakes on a Monday morning. Sara, who’s led all her life by the book, is bewildered by Lola’s disregard for social dictums.

Pizazz oozes out of Manver as Lola. She wears a luxe fur coat and matching shoes over her housecoat before jettisoning off into the world. Despite countless brushes with it, Lola isn’t too scared of death. Hence, she spends Christmas looking for a coffin with the silkiest lining, because comfort is of paramount importance to her. Death is inevitable, so Lola does not shun it; she embraces its eventuality. Sara, the younger of the two women, is uncomfortable with Lola’s near-fatalistic outlook towards life, but what makes One Careful Owner affecting is that their contrasting personalities are never mined for slapstick humour. In the process of discovering each other, Sara and Lola also reassess themselves.

The film also leaves you with a lingering sense of loneliness. Lola left her cheating husband thirty years ago and still regrets it. On the other hand, Sara feels increasingly distanced from her husband. In a profoundly moving scene, Sara and Lola, both confined to their homes, experience the first snowfall in Santa Barbara in almost seven decades. While Lola is ecstatic, Sara crumbles. She lets her guards down to feel vulnerable and scared, because she knows her husband has also been cheating on her.

One Careful Owner is peppered with such tender moments that appear like vignettes from the lives of these women. The film saunters along at a languid pace, taking time to nurture the bond shared by Sara and Lola. They are not just unlikely friends, they are allies for each other, scoffing, laughing and learning together to navigate the uncertainties of life.

Verdict: One Careful Owner comfortably places itself in the catalogue of sad-coms that have taken over the streaming space in recent years. Like I May Destroy You and Fleabag, the characters of One Careful Owner provide catharsis by addressing the universality of human suffering, while also comforting the viewers with its detached, observational humour. After all, the only choice we have sometimes in the face of adversity is to laugh it off.