Review Sheview – English Vinglish

Gauri Shinde’s theme for the film is something anybody can relate to.

For, as a nation, we all suffer from an English complex. A huge fucking English complex.

The 1961 Census had reported that there were about 1652 languages spoken in India. In a country with 30 official languages, English, a Wild Card Entry into the long, overflowing list, has somehow emerged the clear winner and united the country like an adhesive, holding on to some portions tightly, and peeling off in other areas.

English is a result of socio-economic circumstances, and as a result, is often worn on one’s sleeve. It has also created a divide. Of the Cans and the Can Nots.

If you can speak English, your status goes up just that one notch higher. Those who can not speak it are considered just not literate enough. It is taught best at urban areas, and since rural areas have a weak primary education system itself, the fluency with English is negligible.

I have personally benefited from my English fluency, at times. Since the way I dress is not exactly what you would call ‘suave’, I have often been mistaken to be the waiter, driver, or the shopping mall assistant.

Which means that when I enter what you would normally call a ‘posh’ place, I get stopped by the guards. But I know that all I have to do is begin talking in English.

The more accented, complicated, and incomprehensible it is, the more they will bend over to open the door and welcome me in.

Somewhere along the line, proficiency in one’s mother tongue is cool no more. After you have taken the pains of learning at least two Indian languages through your friends, family and television, there is this new foreign thing, with its own grammar, usage and word play. You have to take this alien bull by its horns and master it.

Oh yes, sire! We suffer from a huge English complex.

And I’m surprised nobody took up this theme earlier as the central plot point. Gauri Shinde unravels this obsession and pride over the English language, and the shame without it. And English Vinglish gets off on the right foot with the sheer originality in its theme. And plus, of course, there is Sridevi.

Die hard fans of Sridevi, relax! There is a slow-motion running scene in a semi-transparent blue saree.
                                                                                                                                                                                                      There is still hope for us guys in today’s world.

Sridevi plays a wife whose family keeps taking digs at her for her lack of English. Frankly, parts of it seem stretched, and the film runs a risk of going the Baghban Guilt-Sob route. The film begins shakily, there were moments I nearly cringed. But thankfully, the film managed to hold its own.

The director’s love for her lead actor shows, as she takes her own sweet time to establish her character, and her situation. A healthy number of stereotypes are thrown in, and some of the scenes even seem emotionally manipulative. And I was afraid that the wet, green saree Sridevi of my childhood was now transformed into a pale yellow doormat.

Right then, the director shifts gears, and how!

Unlike most Hindi films that begin promisingly and taper off in the second, English Vinglish manages to keep your attention levels intact, raising it a few notches in the second half, in fact. A special mention for some of the cast – Mehdi Nebbou as the French chef smitten by our own Sridevi, and Sumit Vyas as the Pakistani cabbie. They manage to hold their own in the film that is peppered with quite a few characters.

It is not the kind of film that people will demand should go to the Oscars. Neither is it the kind of film that will guarantee awards to the actors.

If I could describe the film, I would do it this way.

Imagine there is a drunk friend riding a bike, and you’re sitting behind him. He has had four beers, and you are scared he might fall, or bump into vehicles and cows. You keep looking out for him, warning him, closing your eyes, or raising your voice.

But the friend, somehow, manages to clear the hurdles and reach your room safely. So that you can lie down comfortably, and watch the roof as it spins around.

English Vinglish is like that.