Secrets And Lies:
The comma in the title is significant. This Vandana Kataria film is called Love, Sitara for a reason. And it’s not that everyone loves Sitara, they are content in their duplicitous lives, till she arrives to stir up things.
Sitara or Tara as she is called (Sobhita Dhulipala) is an ambitious fashion designer, who is against marriage and kids. But when she falls pregnant, despite being told that she is infertile, she proposes to her chef boyfriend Arjun ( Rajeev Siddhartha). They travel to Kerala to meet Tara’s family and conduct their wedding. For Rajeev, whose father considers him a lover, the idea of a caring family holds appeal.
Her father (Sanjay Bhutiani), mother (Virginia Rodriguez), grandmother (B. Jayashree), and her aunt Hema (Sonali Kulkarni), live in a large traditional house. Amidst the rituals of the imminent wedding, the family’s secrets and the depth of its dysfunction are revealed. The film begins with Tara quoting “somebody” (Tolstoy, actually) : “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
The storm of revelations, in this Vandana Kataria film, is quite banal, but it seems to impact the family. “Lies are our superpower,” as Tara muses.
The most interesting character is Tara’s aunt Hema ( Sonali Kulkarni), a single, career woman who has to bear the brunt of disapproval and judgment. Because she chooses to do what she pleases, no matter who gets hurt in the process.
The grandmother rolls in with her secret too — all four women of the family almost comically have man troubles. In trying to portray modern women as “superheroes”, Kataria makes them all too human and not quite sympathetic. Still, running at less than two hours, it’s not a complete waste of time.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)