Everyone in the Karkaria family is in need of therapy. They just don’t know it until therapist Megha (Neha Dhupia, serene and calming) comes along to put the family on the couch.
Like most middle-class families, this one too is in denial. They say one thing. They feel another. It is in how they eventually reconcile their feelings with their conversations (in the way the characters in the Emmy-winning masterpiece Lost Boys & Fairies do) that Perfect Family feels like a near-perfect portrayal of a… I hesitate to use the term… dysfunctional family.
Every family is dysfunctional, none more than the other. Director Sachin Pathak, with considerable support from writers Palak Bhambri and Adhiraj Sharma, diligently constructs a series that defines the family genre, not by moving away from the clichés but by confronting them headlong.
The Karkaria family’s story initially seems to be built on the premise that each member moves around with a sense of repression, until the magic doctor Megha holds their hands individually and shows each of them how blinded they are to their own true feelings, none more so than the mithai-selling patriarch Somnath Kakaria (Manoj Pahwa).
This facile sardonic reading of the series soon evaporates, as we the audience become immersed in the characters’ identity crisis without judging them. The actors, each more brilliant than the next, won’t let us judge the characters. Somnath’s bloated self-worth is punctured so effectively and so quietly, we tend to forget how much Manoj Pahwa invests into his parts every time he is asked to play the bully patriarch.
His real-life wife Seema Pahwa is right there, playing the doormat, smiling through every slight no matter how major, with such dignity and conviction. Gulshan Devaiah as their repressed son delivers a masterstroke.
Just the pleasure of watching Pahwa and Devaiah stoke the fires of their disembodied relationship is joy enough. But then Girija Oak, one of our most underrated actresses around, as Devaiah’s wife, steers our attention to her character Neeti’s troubles.
In the final episode, when she confronts her repressed husband with some very uncomfortable home truths, we know we are in the presence of actors who have left their own identities behind in pursuit of the most imperfect perfect family we’ve seen in recent times. From Pahwa to little Hriva Trivedi (who plays Pahwa’s 12-year-old granddaughter) and yes, how can we forget Kaveri Seth as Pahwa’s daughter who has left her husband for being boring (haw!)… these are people we know, some of them very close to home.
Not all of it worked swimmingly for me. The sub-plot about Neeti’s seething spouseless mother (Neena Kulkarni, so graceful under pressure), though not entirely superfluous, somehow feels like a bit of a diversion. And Vishnu’s extra-marital affair with the tenebrous Sandra at work seems like a bit of a pushover.
Some resolute trimming would have done Perfect Family a wealth of good. Not that the loose portions take away from its strong comment on Tolstoy’s theory that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The Karkarias get to the other side with a careworn, cautious but confident certainty.
There is some skilful writing and sensitive direction at work here. A pity that this gently evocative series is being watched on phones and laptops.
The Kakarias deserve the big screen.
Also Read: Tere Ishk Mein review: Dhanush-Kriti Sanon’s romantic film is fractured but fabulous
