Sorry Bhaisaab movie review: Sharib Hashmi, Gauahar Khan are brilliant in this short on middle-class maladies

2.5/5

Story:

 A family of three decides they need to buy a new car after their old one gets stolen. Only, the path to finding a new car might just end up taking them back to the old one.

Review:

The cliche that Indian cinema is home to only aspirational escapist fantasies was debunked years ago with movies like Do Dooni Chaar (2010), Hindi Medium (2017) and The Lunchbox (2013). Such charming, slice-of-life dramas effortlessly brought to the fore the many micro-struggles the middle-class milieu have to face — from putting desires for a better life on the backburner, or keeping up with the appearance of doing just fine when faced with prying neighbours.

Arre Studios’ short film, Sorry Bhaisaab, directed by Sumit Ghildiyal and Suman Adhikary, is a leaf out of the middle-class book of Do Dooni Chaar. Here too, the focus is on a nuclear family — Gupta Ji (Sharib Hashmi), Mrs Gupta (Gauahar Khan) and their young daughter (Khanica) — and their aspirations to buy a new car. For the Gupta family though, the car serves more as a showpiece that is to remain parked in the parking lot, lest their spot be seized.

Gupta Ji is a pot-bellied man who is rather content with life. He dons his new tracksuit every morning at the behest of his wife, who insists he should adopt a healthier lifestyle. While neighbours are squarely dismissive of Gupta Ji, Mrs Gupta is a respected woman in her neighbourhood. She frequently hosts kitty parties for her friends where she flexes about her new possessions, garnering gasps, eyebrow raises and sniggers all the same.

The universe is acutely familiar, with auto-rickshaw drivers blithely refusing rides, incompetent guards justifying faulty CCTV cameras by claiming they’ll only be operational after the upcoming elections, and shopkeepers offering snide remarks on their customers. So when one fine morning, Gupta Ji realises his treasured possession, his decrepit red car, has been stolen, all hell breaks loose at the household. Mrs Gupta nabs the opportunity to goad her husband into finally investing in a new car, but Mr Gupta is petrified of the possibility of additional expenditure, and hence, tries hard to convince his wife to delay the conversation for a few more months.

The 20-minute-short benefits from its attention to detail, the lived-in Gupta home, and its leads. As husband and wife of many years, Gauahar and Sharib hit the sweet spot between agony and amusement when constantly bickering about their new car. Both the actors slip into the roles of Mr and Mrs Gupta with ample ease, making them annoying, endearing and gullible at the same time. However, it’s perhaps time that women characters be a little more fleshed out than just “complaining wives.” It is to the credit of Gauahar that her character never tips off to the other side and becomes a trope, but her characterisation leaves a lot to be desired in the space of middle Indian cinema.

Verdict:

Sorry Bhaisaab is not really groundbreaking. It does not attempt to add anything to the ever-growing repository of middle-class narratives. Nevertheless, it’s tender and fun, and the reveal in the end feels satisfactory enough to be worth the 20-minute ride.

Watch Sorry Bhaisaab here