Movie Review: We are Family – Stay Away
We Are Family is a movie that neither makes a mark as an emotionally tugging movie nor moves you with any sense of warmth. Yes, the director Siddarth Malhotra does make you cry by the end of the film, as promised, but the tears are more for the money you’ve spent watching this film.
Story of We are Family: Arjun Rampal is divorced and his kids live with his ex wife Kajol (Maya). He is now in a relationship with Shreya(Kareena Kapoor), a glamorous puss who has second thoughts about meeting Arjun’s kids. The movie is mostly about how Kareena adjusts to the kids and how they reconcile with the ‘other lady’ in their house. Also there is another sub-plot like Kajol being a terminal patient like we saw in the original Hollywood version.
What is good about we are Family: The performances of all the actors in the film are good with Kajol and the teenager Aalliya leading the fray.
What is not so good about We are Family:
- There are many things that do not work in the film. The movie is besieged with too many clichés and forced moments. The antics of the children resisting a new person in the family has been seen so many time and the treatment in this film is nothing new to boast about.
- Kareena’s characterization is flawed. Either she is shown being a hot model who does not care a damn about family values or she is shown adjusting to be a door-mat.
- The kids in the film do not like the 8 year olds or 13 years olds of today. They are too much into the la-la land making the entire thing look so filmy. Also one does not understand why the kids are not happy with the other woman in the house because in Australia, kids do no usually have hang-ups about their father having a girlfriend.
- The evolution of Kareena into a caring woman is quite inconsistent and sporadic, so much that it looks suspicious. In the original movie Stepmom, Julia Roberts gradually wins the kids over and it is endearing to watch them; you don’t see any of such things in KJo’s movie.
- Kajol may have acted well, but her character looks fake and over the top. Imagine someone hamming instead of being subtle in her last days.
- Though they have credited the official remake, director and script writer (Venita Coelho) has liberally taken stuff from other kiddie movies and put it here. For instance, 13 year old Aliya who is asked to come back from a party because she went away without asking pemision is straight out of ‘Raising Helen’.
- There is also a song and dance drama by the family trying to convince Kajol about how much she will be missed, once she is gone; this is clearly grating on nerves. 1
- Arjun Rampal’s role has a weak characterization; there is just no substance in the film for him He looks like a bystander.
To sum up
It is better to avoid We are Family. You can take your family out to a nice dinner instead, this weekend, if you have a choice.
Rating:*1/2
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Another symbol of all that is wrong with Bollywood… or most of it anyway!
Irritatingly Westernised, this should not even be called an Indian adaptation. It’s, as if, the makers of Stepmom experimented with making a Hindi film but were least bothered to come to India. Would Karan JOhar please stop embarrassing himself with this nonsense? This strange world neither here nor there exists only in his mind which still, it would seem, thrives on bad films of Hollywood made in the 90’s. It is as expected soulless, pointless, contrived and stupid in the extreme. But it’s total lack of success in moving & entertaining anyone, even those who lap this kind of concoction up without any questions asked, is something new. The mental faculties of this “scion” were always lacking but now they can be declared spent.