The Cinemawala

Sharat Katariya is a master storyteller. The way he had woven a love story between two opposites in ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’, speaks a lot about his vision. He has an uncanny ability to craft extraordinary out of ordinary. His characters are the people that we meet in our everyday lives. Be it Sandhya, his plus-size heroine from DLKH who wants to be independent and seeks respect for what she’s or Buaji who bickers with Sandhya during daily affairs of livelihood yet requests Sandhya and Prem for reconciliation as she knows what it feels to live alone for the rest of the life – These are real people, flesh and blood. They are not the glorified heroes yet something about them is heroic. In his latest offering ‘Sui Dhaaga – Made In India’ he attempts to tell a similar story about rural entrepreneurs. 

‘Sui Dhaaga – Made In India’ begins with the introduction of the characters of the Mishra family. Mauji is married to Mamta. They live with Mauji’s parents where the father is always with loggerheads with his son. Mauji works as a helper in a sewing machine sales company.  In lieu of an incident that embarrasses Mauji’s family, he resigns from his job. With Mamta’s backing, how Mauji revives his family trade of tailoring, comprises rest of the story.

To be honest, it’s a movie made with a lot of heart. It explores the struggle that people go through in their day to day lives. It doesn’t go overboard in showing how it affects people. Just like any other problem in their lives, a new problem occupies its space and bugs people, until they find a workaround for it. Mauji’s exploitation at work, his mother’s higher medical costs and eventual harassment by the hospital authorities, Mamta and Mauji’s predicament at the garments factory about losing talent to money – these sequences are bound to moisten your eyes, for they mirror the common man’s life and its tussles. On the other hand, it also shows us the glimpses of a bond slowly strengthening between a husband and his wife, who until that moment of adversity, hardly got any time for themselves. It’s moving to see them, hand in hand, walking together on their path to hard earned success.

Anushka Sharma does a terrific work. She’s in superb form as Mamta, the silent yet strongest force behind Mauji’s decisions. She plays an obedient wife and a daughter-in-law who takes care of her family yet when it comes to self-respect, she doesn’t mince words. Varun Dhawan does well as Mauji but pales in comparison to Anushka’s act. Somehow he doesn’t come as convincing as rest of the cast. Raghuvir Yadav and Yamini Das as Mauji’s parents are fabulous, especially Ms Das. As a mother who takes care of the household, she puts up a great act. Mr Yadav is no stranger to author-backed roles and he has an ability to create strong empathetic characters. His act of a worried father, who rebukes his son at the drop of a hat yet comes to his rescue every time he faces an issue, will resonate with every father.

Which brings us to the parts where the movie struggles. As said before, it’s a decent movie yet at times, it feels something’s lacking in it. It doesn’t have the rustic essentials of a ‘Dangal’ or the small town feels of a ‘Bareily Ki Barfi’. It’s somewhere midway between a good film and an average film. The story sets the pace with Mamta and Mauji starting their venture as entrepreneurs but the eventual culmination at the fashion event with a David vs Goliath showdown somehow doesn’t fit. Some scenes bring a lump to the throat yet once you’re out of the theatre, the characters fizzle out of the memory. Which’s sad, because the actors have really done a great job but the screenplay simply doesn’t do justice to it. Music by Anu Malik is soothing, especially Chaav Laga, but again it’s not a melody like Moh Moh Ke Dhaage. 

‘Sui Dhaaga – Made In India’ is a decent effort. Watch it for the individual performances. As a whole, the film comes up a tad loose than what it should have been.

The Cinemawala Rating: 2.5/5