Saas, Bahu Aur Sensex

Rating : 5/10
Running Time : 144 Minutes
Release Date : 19th September ‘2008
Director & Writer : Shona Urvashi; Writer : Shashi Deshpande ; Music : Blaaze, Bipin, Randolph Correa
Starring : Farouque Shaikh, Kirron Kher, Lilette Dubey, Tanushree Dutta

You always know where you’re heading with one and they didn’t make the journey fun enough. The whole sensex – women part is interesting but not much is made of it, its actually misleading as there is very little more to this part vs what you see in the trailers. The bulk of the movie is about Kirron Kher, freshly divorced, with twenty-something daughter (Tanushree), moving to Mumbai from Kolkotta and then its about the different people they encounter there. Tanushree, who hates her mom for leaving dad and coming to Mumbai, meets nice guy next door (Ankur Khanna), who’s heart is with someone else (Masumeh Makhija, playing a wealth chasing hottie).

Kirron meets a variety of women in the colony (all housewives, not desperate) including the always elegant Lilette, a mother-in-law / daughter-in-law combination who are always trying to outdo each other and a punjabi stereotypical housewife, named Jasbeer Brar, ‘don’t forget the R’. There is also a south Indian housewife who is desperate but again not much is made of this. Kirron also meets Farouque Shaikh, a stockbroker, Parsi stereotype, through whom she tries to sell shares. And then she tries to learn about shares and her kitty party club also then becomes involved. How all of them interact is what the rest of the film is about.

Good points are Kirron Kher not playing a Punjabi housewife, thank God, even she must have been tired of it. She’s Bengali in this one. Lillete, Farooque and she are clearly a notch above the rest of the cast in acting ability. Some of the jokes are good – there’s a shopping trip where there are some sarcastic comments regarding plastic surgery and also the saas-bahu hilariously try to outdo each other. The serial everyone watches is called ‘Saas bhi kabhi kanya thi’ and is a good ripoff the material Balaji Productions specializes in putting on TV.

But a weak script, very ordinary plot and a pace that borders on the slower side combine to make this film not very appealing. I wish they’d gone deeper into the whole sensex angle. Making money quickly is what the sensex is about, from the little that I’ve seen of it. Unfortunately the movie, overall, also gives the impression of one trying to cash in on a fad, without putting the work behind it.