What Is the Story About?
Tara, who’s in a steady relationship with a chef Arjun, realises she’s pregnant and plans to enter wedlock at the earliest, a decision that takes her family and friends by surprise. As she heads back to her ancestral home in Kerala for a minimalistic wedding, several family secrets tumble out of the closet.
Performances?
Love Sitara is a complete insult to Sobhita Dhulipala’s capabilities – it’s hard to understand why she doesn’t get plum roles even after pulling off Goodachari, Made in Heaven, Ponniyin Selvan and The Night Manager with equal panache. It’s time she valued herself higher and waited to pick the right parts. Rajeev Siddhartha is flamboyant and expressive, though the role limits his performance.
Sonali Kulkarni makes the most of a pivotal character, but one wishes it wasn’t treated with an air of conservatism. Popular producer Sanjay Bhutiani is miscast as Govind, while Sankar Indrachoodan’s role barely scrapes the surface. Virginia Rodrigues, Tamara Dsouza and Seema Sawhney Sharma don’t quite get to make a solid impact in their limited roles.
Analysis
Love Sitara is a textbook example of how not to make a dysfunctional family drama. Popular production designer Vandana Kataria, in her second directorial effort after Noblemen, churns an airy, vague film populated with messy subplots that don’t complement each other. The filmmaker makes a royal mess with the niceties in her backdrop and struggles to build any momentum for the story.
The film commences with a designer Tara’s surprise realisation of her pregnancy and her sudden decision to tie the knot with her longtime beau Arjun. The news changes her worldview overnight. Tara’s friends are surprised that she wants to embrace motherhood, forge a sense of permanence in her relationship with Arjun and strike a balance between her career and marriage.
None of Tara’s close aides is aware of her pregnancy and as she returns home, skeletons tumble out of the closet, further complicating her dicey situation. Her idea of a ‘perfect family’ is shattered when the past of her parents catches up with her. This forces her to reevaluate priorities and confront a tricky situation – even if it could potentially derail her wedding.
Love Sitara would’ve been more tolerable had the director been in control of Tara’s cultural roots. Much like Meenakshi Sundareshwar, where cliches around Tamilian traditions, pop-culture were exaggerated to Baahubalian levels, the director’s portrayal of Kerala is a complete embarrassment here. It’s the kind of understanding one develops of the State after watching Lungi Dance, Jiya Jale.
A grandma runs a cow shelter for a living (??), a father learns to tie a veshti for the first time ahead of his daughter’s wedding and a boyfriend calls his partner a ‘typical’ Mallu girl when she demands steamy action in a B-grade theatre. There’s no sincere attempt to understand how a multilingual family functions in Kerala and the cultural misappropriation is as insensitive as it could get.
Probably, the stereotypical representation of Kerala may not have had a greater effect if the family drama was less bizarre. Apart from Tara, the evolution of the other characters is hardly convincing. The director doesn’t dive into the psyche of her characters effectively and the writing is so one-note.
The father is a womaniser, the mother is the loyal wife, the aunt is an unmarried woman with an eventful past and the boyfriend is the son of a snobbish, wealthy business baron. One gets a feeling that the director is probably judging the characters for their choices. In particular, the victimisation of an elderly unmarried woman in the family wasn’t necessary at all.
When the man makes problematic decisions with relationships in his life, the film nearly ‘normalises’ it and doesn’t try to elaborate on his behaviour and choices. Moreover, the subplots are tied together poorly and the supposed idea of sisterhood among the women in the family doesn’t register one bit. While the director’s aim is to push the envelope forward in the portrayal of relationships and acceptance within a family, the intent doesn’t match the execution. Even with its 100-minute narrative, Love Sitara is exhausting.
Music and Other Departments?
Sangeet and Siddharth Haldipur’s songs are the only silver linings in Love Sitara – they pump in the much-needed sensitivity and enthusiasm into the situation, even when the director doesn’t. Shrikanth Sriram’s music passes muster. Sszymon Lenkowski’s cinematography is a visual feast, though it’s difficult to explain what prompted the team to opt for a strange, jaundiced colour tone.
The production design and costumes complement the film’s visual grammar. However, the casting decisions are particularly horrendous – none of the actors feel like they belong to the film’s universe and look completely lost and alienated. The shorter runtime doesn’t provide much relief either.
Highlights?
Sobhita Dhulipala’s performance (though she’s miscast as a Malayali)
Technical finesse
Drawbacks?
Terrible writing
Poor choice of actors
Cultural misappropriation of Kerala
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
Not at all
Love Sithara Movie Review by Binged Bureau
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