A lot of films have been made in Indian Cinema showing women’s journey of regaining their self-respect and independence. Debutant director Sonal Joshi’s film “Sukhee” starring Shilpa Shetty Kundra also touches the same subject.
The story revolves around a forty-year-old Punjabi housewife Sukhpreet Kalra ‘Sukhi’ (played by Shilpa Shetty). Fed up with her monotonous life, she leaves her husband and daughter and comes to Delhi from Punjab to attend her school reunion. Delhi is the city where Sukhi grew up and had a happy school-college life. Sukhi, who was self-confident and took the lead in everything during college, has now completely changed and got herself trapped in family life.
So on the pretext of reunion, she wants to live her old life again with her three friends – Meher, Mansi and Tanzvi . During this trip she goes through different experiences but this time not just as a wife or a mother but as a woman. After all, during the college days, the motto of the group of these four girls was to live the life to the fullest.
Generally, this is a conception about middle class housewives that their lives change completely after marriage. Overburdened with the responsibilities of the family, the housewife sacrifices many of her dreams to fulfill the needs of her husband and children. And when one day she decides to live for herself, she is very easily called selfish.
The specialty of women directors is that when they weave a story around women, they present the emotional aspects of women very precisely and beautifully on the screen. Being a woman, one can properly understand the difficulties, joys and sorrows that come in the life of the other women. But, there is no aspect of women’s emotions in the film “Sukhee” which is solely the work of a woman writer or director.
Debutant director Sonal Joshi still needs to learn nuances of direction. This film, which talks about women empowerment in a light-hearted manner, looks confused at many places. At some places it reminds you of Sridevi starrer “English Vinglish”, while at other places it wants to be “Veere Di Wedding”. Director Sonal Joshi has kept the first half of the film at a good pace, trying to establish all the characters well. But in the second half the film becomes so slow that you just wait for it to end.
The screenplay of the story, written by writers Radhika Anand, Paulomi Dutta and Rupinder Indrajit is weak. The track of Sukhi’s friends seems half-baked. The struggles of her life have not been established. Shilpa Shetty’s love track with Amit Saad also lacks depth. However, some scenes have turned out quite well, like when Sukhi’s husband Guru goes to the shop with his daughter to buy pads for the first time. The bond between father and daughter comes out brilliantly there. But then the question comes back, why would such a film be made in which the director cannot serve something new to the audience? The story of the film is nothing but a mixture of stories from many such films which we have seen in the past and therefore fails to leave an impact.
In terms of acting, Shilpa Shetty has been perfect in every way for the role of Sukhi. She has put life into her character and portrayed the commitments, desires and guilt of a housewife very well. Kusha Kapila has made a good start in the films as a proud single mother. Amit Saad’s role could have been expanded, although he has proved himself in the limited screen space. Although, Chaitanya’s character is a bit stale he seems to be trying to make it believable to some extent.
All in all, “Sukhee” could have been a beautiful lookout on women’s life who confine themselves to home after marriage but it suffers at the level of script.
“Sukhee” is now showing in theaters near you!
