Directed by: Rohena Gera
Cast: Tilottama Shome, Vivek Gomber, Rahul Vohra, Divya Seth, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Dilnaz Irani, Anupriya Goenka, Akash Sinha, Chandrachoor Rai and others.
Warm welcome to the director who has handled a societal divide between the rich and the downtrodden so sensitively without pampering the sex hungry OTT crowd. The “Sir” in this story is a wealthy elite New York based man who returns to India after a bitter breakup with his to be wife a few days before the wedding. Living in a posh apartment (suitable to his high end status) the only person catering to his needs is the livein house maid Ratna.
The maid who’s a widow battling financial issues back in her village has aspirations of becoming a dress designer, with each other’s sympathetic company a sensitive and tender relationship is forged by the two between each other, while the Sir is emotionally and psychologically involved, Ratna thinks of the practical repercussions of their unusual and socially unacceptable relationship.
So what’s new here? We’ve seen a similar rich man and housemaid relationship in Netflix’s Lust Stories(2018) and bonus they’d a explicit sex scene as well while there’s no sex here , disappointed? In case you are looking for steamy soft porn housemaid fetish scenes then avoid as this is more of an offbeat short film, read that as not catering to front row whistle blowing sex starved viewers.
May not be realistic but it’s certainly not filmy like Raja Hindustani (1996) where the societal divide looked incomprehensible. Gera as the director does a fantastic job, dealing with sensitive scenes isn’t that easy but she manages to pull the strings together. The pace is slow, but not dull, at only 1 hour 38 minutes it’s not even dragged, we get enough insight into the emotional lives of Sir and Ratna.
The brilliant performances are like a bonus, Shome has come a long way from the Bihari Maid Alice of Monsoon Wedding(2001) to the Maharashtrian maid Ratna here, except the job nothing else is comparable as Shome has grown as an actor, her expressions, dialogue delivery everything displays maturity and finesse. Gomber is a delight to watch, after an unimpressive act in A Suitable Boy(2020) he’s skyrocketed to absolute perfection in this act. We need more short stories like these, they shine like real diamonds in an OTT field of imitations. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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