In spite of its many flaws of excessive sentimentality and unapologetic maudlinism, director Sri Ganesh’s third feature film is an experience to cherish. Every moment is garnished with the spices of homemade sentiments. The characters are your neighbours whom you’ve probably not noticed, busy as you are getting along with your own life.
When we first meet Vasudevan (R Sarathkumar) and his family of wife Shanthi (Devayani), daughter Aarthi (Meetha Raghunath) and son Prabhu (Siddharth), they have moved freshly into a modest home with barely enough room for the family.
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No, Vasudevan and his family don’t burst into a song about love conquers all. This is not your silly-family-conquers-adversity yarn like Tourist Family. Nothing touristic in this frame-by-frame chronicle of a family fighting insolvency.
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There is no bravado in the film’s DNA, and that is its biggest asset. It looks at the modest means of the family neither with pity nor over-optimism, but with a sense of dignified sombreness.
No, this won’t do. But what to do? Throughout the long film (some of the dramatic twists towards the end did not transmogrify), one feels the burden of the middleclass living standards without a head-banging despair.
Siddharth, one of the finest Tamil actors of the post-Kamal Haasan generation, undertakes an astonishing metamorphosis; from an anxious teenager to an anxious adult, he is a joy to behold. I would single out his job interview when admits he doesn’t mind being a loser, as one of cinema’s most honest monologues.
It is notable how the baton of the family head moves from the father and son. The best part of the family parable is the lack of excessive optimism in the narration. No magical wand is woven for all the family’s problems to evaporate. On the contrary, the problems grow progressively, and the marital problems of the daughter could have been avoided: they seem like some more misery where there is already enough.
Although the tone of narration tends to get over-anxious, the actors, especially Sarath Kumar and Siddharth, ensure a safe harbouring. Even the non-pivotal characters, for instance, the affluent girl whom Prabhu’s father selects for him to marry, and Prabhu’s pragmatic uncle, have a life of their own.
There are no black and white characters here. This is a film that treats every character with dignity. It doesn’t squander any footage on surplus songs and redundant characters. There is a matter-of-fact tone tearing through the very fabric of the muscular fable. By the time we reach the utopian ending, we really wish good things to happen to Prabhu’s family, which now includes Prabhu’s sweetnatured family-oriented wife Aishyu (Chaithra J Achar). A real home-maker.
Anchoring the film, ironing out its wrinkles, is Siddharth. He plays the good but unremarkable son with a rare and remarkable understanding. For this alone, 3BHK is an experience worth embracing.