Love Sitara Movie Review: In this age of high-concept narratives and experimental storytelling, simplicity has become a rarity. Sobhita Dhulipala’s next release, Love Sitara, reminds us of that in a rather neat and beautiful way. It’s minimalistic, linear, safe and unapologetic. The film deals with a dysfunctional family, the warped mantra of happiness, complex human emotions, infidelity and so much more.
Yes, this is old wine in a new bottle. While there was definitely room for director Vandana Kataria to dig deep and dirty her hands with the grimy and unforgivable messiness of relationships, she deserves credit for not shying from portraying the compassionate nature of feminism.
Love Sitara revolves around the life of Sitara or Tara (some parts of the character seem to be an extension of the Tara from Made In Heaven), as she’s fondly referred to. The film opens with a sequence where she finds out that she’s pregnant. That night, she proposes to her boyfriend, a chef named Arjun, for marriage and soon, preparations begin for their D-Day. Tara’s best friend Anjali is however not particularly thrilled with the news as she reminds her that marriage or kids wasn’t exactly part of her plan.
Tara explains to her that she has undergone a shift in her mind-set and now she wants everything – marriage, kids, a dog and a cat. She soon travels to her maternal grandmother’s home in Kochi where the shotgun wedding (although Arjun and their families are unaware of her pregnancy) is supposed to take place. We also get a glimpse of Arjun’s life who plans on shifting base to Singapore to further his career in the culinary world days after the wedding. His father, however, is staunchly against his decision, because how can a man belong in the kitchen and not do something more manly?
Tara’s family also has Hema chechi, her unhinged, modern, progressive and unapologetic maternal aunt. Days before the wedding, Tara while going through a box of old photographs chances upon a picture of her dad and aunt, which leads her to get suspicious of an old extramarital affair between them. This takes a toll on her emotions, leading her to get cynical of marriages and relationships. She along with the help of Arjun and Anjali try hard to unravel Hema’s past and finds out her air hostess aunt currently has an extramarital affair with a pilot. And later, a big secret about Sitara also unfolds that changes everything.
At 1 hour 45 minutes, Love Sitara makes for a crisp narrative where the director wastes no time in setting its tone. Vandana sensitively portrays extramarital affairs and makes a subtle statement that it’s not as rare as one would imagine. In Sitara’s family, all the three generations of women have experienced it – sometimes, they have been the victims and sometimes, the home-breakers. But not even for once, does she look at them through the lens of judgment, reiterating how infidelity isn’t a marker of character. It may not make one a bad person but it sure has negative consequences, often impacting the next generation as well.
Writers Sonia Bahl, Abbas Dalal and Hussain Dalal deserve credit for penning all the characters – Ammuma (B Jayashree), Sitara’s mother (Virginia Rodrigues), Hema (Sonali Kulkarni) and Sitara – with a lot of nuance and maturity. All of them are written with a rather interesting and cinematic arc that renders them the chance to give the audience a glimpse of the different shades that make a woman up.
B Jayashree starts off a curmudgeon, ill-tempered woman who later explains that tough love is her language as she has realised that expressive love can do more harm than good. Virginia transitions from a quintessential homemaker cum mother – selfness and unconditionally loving and giving – into a woman who stands up for herself when comes to know that she has been cheated on. Vandana here recognises women as who they’re – independent of who they become through relationships.
But it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it’s Sonali’s Hema who stands out. She shares a bittersweet relationship with her sister, is aware of her beauty luring men and has no qualms in admitting that an extramarital affair is her way to be in love. Her heartbreak as the other woman who gets the shorter end of the stick in a relationship is palpable. Sitara, like already mentioned, has shades of Tara from Made In Heaven. Only here, she’s put in a different and less glamorous setting. She’s the epitome of modern feminism who calls her own shots but can also go to any length to win back the man she loves.
In short, all these women represent love in all its form – they rise and fall and suffer and heal. Love Sitara is a classic example of what transpires when women get written by women. The men, on the other hand, are also not even a unilateral treatment. Rajeev Siddhartha’s Arjun ably supports Sitara and is extremely empathetic through all his emotional upheavals. In a key scene, he helplessly tells her, ‘I might be nice but not dumb’. And that sums his personality.
Love Sitara is as close to life as it can be. It might not be a genre-defining and trailblazing film but it sure deserves a watch for capturing the essence of relationships. Unlike its heavyweight theme of love and happiness and the difficulty of finding, rediscovering and sustaining them, it’s frothy, breezy and easy on the eyes.
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