The Great Indian Family Review

The Great Indian Family is director Vijay Krishna Acharya's next film after the disastrous Thugs of Hindostan, and we are happy to say it is not quite that bad.

The Great Indian Family begins with Ved Vyas Tripathi (Vicky Kaushal) explaining, through a childhood flashback, the origins of his nickname - Bhajan Kumar. He is the son of Pandit Siya Ram Tripathi, the numero uno Hindu priest in the fictitious town of Balrampur. Every big social event is headed by him, much to the annoyance of his competitor, Pandit Jagannath Mishra (Yashpal Sharma).

One night, a letter from a stranger turns the entire life of Bhajan Kumar upside down, and the very same community that embraced him starts to turn on him. With support from nobody apart from his newfound group of friends led by the fiery Jasmeet (Manushi Chhillar), how will Bhajan Kumar reclaim his life?

There is an interesting innocence to The Great Indian Family that is honestly refreshing in this day and age. It pushes social boundaries, and tackles taboo concepts - but it does so in a manner that ends up never feeling uncomfortable. Sure, we initially do wonder if all nuance is lost when a pandit enters a majority Muslim locality saying things like "we enter and leave in the manner of a surgical strike" or a guy saying saying a version of "Hindu khatre mein hai", but as time progresses we realise that these jokes are intentional, and more importantly made with no malice. Even when we enter the territory of Hindu-Muslim relations, there is an earnestness with which the topic is treated that seems to advise the viewer to focus on the message.

This approach might not endear itself to some people, because the world inhabited by The Great Indian Family almost seems sanitised of all the real life issues related to the topic it speaks about. Further, the plot of the actual film is paper-thin and extremely predictable where you can see from a mile away how things will resolve themselves once a certain character comes back onto the frame. You will never once feel the tension from the events unfolding on screen in his absence because you know his reappearance will take care of everything and tie things up with a neat little bow.

Vicky Kaushal is eminently watchable - he understands his character and revels in taking the centrestage. Manushi Chhillar is unfortunately relegated to being a textbook strong woman character, which also unfortunately means there is little chemistry between the pairing. The supporting cast is fantastic with the exception of the lead character's "frenemy" who seems to have a singular grumpy expression throughout the film.

Pritam's music and Kingshuk Chakraborty's score are not too bad if unmemorable. None of the songs stands out as a banger, but the music doesn't feel out of place or unbearable. Ayananka Bose's visuals take you on a journey through quintessential small town North India, in line with the sanitised approach the rest of the film takes.

It is no surprise that this kind of a socially relevant yet entirely trouble-free entertainer comes from the house of Yash Raj Films, the trailblazers of this concept of mixing traditional values with a more modern outlook. While this is not necessarily an unwatchable film, it does feel naive to stress so much on the message that you create a make-believe utopia surrounding it - insulated from the insularity of the audience it is trying to reach.