Cast: Amruta Subhash, Anup Soni, Anjana Sukhani, Manu Bisht, and Yamini Das.
Creator: Apoorv Singh Karki & Arunabh Kumar
Director: Apoorv Singh Karki
A husband has fallen out of love with his wife and has found a new partner. The two have decided to get a divorce but the conflict is about the kids.
Will a single woman with no education be able to bring up two kids alone? And how?
The complex dynamic of people falling out of love and remarrying gracefully has never been dealt with so well in Indian writing. Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt. Ltd is not a stereotypical story of a woman finding her own after getting divorced and planting women lib flags all over town.Neither is it a story of a dragon bindi totting other woman who falls in love with a married man and “breaks a home”.
Yet, It is a story about liberation, it is a story about choices people make, it is a story about courage, and most importantly a story about the moment one must pull the trigger. The writing shapes this world as any other household. A father who gives his fatherhood a fair chance while doing what his heart says is right, a mother who is a homemaker and not much literate, two kids with teenage problems, and a grandmother who is loving and supportive.
The conflict here is that the father Dilip has fallen out of love with his wife Suman and is now into another woman who he is married to. So Suman has to stay separately and build a world for herself. TVF over the years has made satire their USP and in this series in collab with Zee Global, Arunabh Kumar and Akansh Gaur with dialogues and screenplay by Swarndeep Biswas, Abhishek Srivastava & Manan Madaan ace the narrative in building a world where they break strereotypical tropes of relationships as depicted on screen. The biggest victory of the show is this warm storytelling.
Even the supposedly evil stepmother is surprisingly caring, loving and understands the fact that she has snatched someone else’s place, but for love.
At many places in the story some or the other character remind us how Suman is illiterate, but then the she is seen to to tackle situations of life through her experiences.There is a transformation and a world outside marriage that she discovers. Her scenes with her neighbor Shuklaji, the guy who cheats her of her money and earnings are funny. And so is her journey. She takes her time to accept her turmoil that she is pushed into by her husband, Dilip, but she fights hard and rises above it.
Ths show is Amruta Subhash’s show all the way. The actor is phenomenal The actor makes Suman her own. There is a sense of dejectedness around her because of everything that has happened and she makes you see it effortlessly.
Yamini Das as the mother in law is every cute granny you ever met. She adds much more to the character than just being another aged character in a script.
Anjana Sukhani gets to play a very well written part. Even the makers understand that a viewer might assume her to be evil and they take their own time to break your myth. Anjana does a great job with creating a connect with the audience.
Anup Soni is that husband who perhaps evokes no empathy for any of his actions. While there is not enough space for him to shine in the plot, in the climax he asks, “kya mein tumse pyaar nahi karpaya yeh meri galti hain”, and no one has an answer to that. He is one of the most under-utilized actors in the series.
For a weekend binge, this light hearted family drama is a beaut.
Recommended.
