A comic caper that fails to keep tempo
Tumhari Sulu is a happy story that comes with a pragmatic, feminist message too.
The supremely talented Vidya Balan is Sulochana, a happy housewife who loves caring for her family — a loving husband (Manav Kaul) and a cute kid — and enjoys trying her hand at different things.
She never finished school, but she boasts about being runner-up in the lemon-and-spoon race and winner of her housing society’s Best Mom contest. She loves signing up for contests, and often wins a kitchen utensil or small appliance. Her life takes a turn when she arrives at a radio station to collect her latest prize – a pressure cooker – and is offered the job of night-shift RJ instead. Balan is effortless as the impulsive, enthusiastic woman who finds a new kind of happiness and struggles to fit it in with the old.
Credit is due to director Suresh Triveni for tapping comedic talent no one else had seen before.
Kaul’s understated performance is the perfect foil to Balan’s charming ebullience. He is powerful yet subtle, as he moves from affection to insecurity to resentment in the face of an unexpectedly independent wife. Tumhari Sulu, sadly, fails to maintain the tempo. Triveni portrays beautifully the personal and professional battles of the working wife and mother, but with no real plot unfolding, the film begins to feel like a series of haphazard montage.
The actors are brilliant, the narrative charming, the details of everyday life beautifully etched, but as Sulu would say, balance “gondogol ho gaya”.
Even with its two-and-ahalf-hour runtime, it’s still worth it for Balan and Kaul.