A sew-sew story
What makes a tailor special? There are tailors with a knack for hiding curves, some who achieve mastery over seamless sewing, those who establish a rollicking rapport with customers, fast ones who can stitch a school’s worth of uniforms in one night, and those who — like Rajkummar Rao in the recent hit, Stree — can measure ladies from a distance, merely by looking at them.
Sharat Katariya’s Sui Dhaaga tells us Mauji, played by Varun Dhawan, is special — if only because he is played by Varun Dhawan. He has no discernible talent or specialisation, and this could have been potentially interesting: a hero without heroics.
Unfortunately, this character is trapped in a depressingly dull film. Sui Dhaaga is so predictable that the theatrical trailer beats the film.
Entrepreneurship can make for stirring cinema. One of the most enjoyable examples is Band Baaja Baaraat, starring Dhawan’s co-star Anushka Sharma at her fiercest. That film about wedding planners gave wings to young audiences, but no such inspiration or insight can be found in this by-the-numbers affair.
Sui Dhaaga is well acted, but it is as exciting as watching a shirt pocket get monogrammed with a logo. It’s barely a Baaja.
Dhawan’s character Mauji is meant to be a happy-go-lucky fellow but is always shown to us flustered, on the verge of sobbing. (Maybe it’s that sweatervest and Manoj Prabhakar moustache.)
Sharma, meanwhile, simpers. She plays a crucial role, the wife who bestows faith in her husband: he only dares to dream because she dares him to. The two actors work well together, him selling the injuries while she sells the anguish. Also, after being mousy throughout, her smile in the last stretch is fittingly bright.
Raghubir Yadav does typically well as Dhawan’s disgruntled father, and Namit Das has fun playing a character who tickles people as hard as he laughs at his own jokes. The film’s finest performance comes from Yamini Das, playing Dhawan’s mother.
She runs her house on autopilot, and can’t let go of instructions or kitchen utensils even when collapsing to the ground. She chides her husband for crying over television soaps when he can’t bear them, but later allows him to recap to her those very shows she doesn’t really care about.
Katariya’s films have nuanced asides and nice dialogue, but this one refuses to get interesting. Lyricist Varun Grover writes some evocative lines, although I found it interesting that this proudly make-inindia film has songs made by Anu Malik, a composer known for appropriating knock-offs of established products.
Sui Dhaaga is a feel-good film about dignity of labour, and the honest toil of a hard-working tailor. Too bad it feels machinemade.