Unexpectedly, Love, Sitara opens with the opening lines of Leo Tolstoy’s magnum opus Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The film’s title isn’t just unimaginative, it’s also deceiving. It’s not exactly a tell-all letter by the protagonist to the viewer, where the title would have served as an undersign.
It’s also not a request by the makers to love its lead character keeping aside its flaws (in that case, lose the comma). What it is about is a dysfunctional family and a run-up to a wedding that exposes all its hidden wounds. It’s all about loving your family.
Life takes a different turn for Sitara (Sobhita Dhulipala), a young, ambitious interior designer when she discovers that she is pregnant. She catches hold of on-and-off partner Arjun (Rajeev Siddhartha) and proposes to him. A reckless decision. I appreciated the measured unravelling of Sitara at this point. Is she good, bad or a victim of upbringing and circumstances?
Things start taking shape once the action shifts to her village in Kerala, to her ancestral house where she plans to wed. We meet her family: her straight-talking grandmother, submissive mother Latha, charming father Govind (Sanjay Bhutiani) and cool aunt Hema (Sonali Kulkarni). It seems a happy family at first, huddling over photo albums, cracking up at the dinner table, but a closer look and there are red ants underneath all the beauty.
Sitara’s father Govind had a thing with her aunt Hema in the past. Hema herself is having a liaison with her boss. Govind too might be having a fling with a co-worker. Sitara’s grandfather also walked out on her grandmother because he fell for someone else. It seems like an overkill, a rather simplistic way to demonstrate that people are products of their families.
The film takes on an intriguing subject and explores it plainly. The writing too isn’t sharp. In a scene, an interviewer asks Sitara if designing brings her happiness, to which she replies, “All of us design our happiness ourselves.” I was reminded of morning motivational messages on WhatsApp.
What works for Love, Sitara is its setting. The green visuals of a Kerala village are calming. There is also some inventiveness, like in an amusing, even absurd scene, the family gets in the barn and urges a bull to impregnate a cow. Sobhita Dhulipala is sincere but sometimes wobbly in mouthing Hindi dialogues.
Sonali Kulkarni brings an easy gravitas to her character. Her performance dissects the cool, assertive aunt trope and reveals a vulnerable, lonely woman. The male characters, however, lack depth. Rajeev Siddhartha as Arjun has been given a job of the chef, but what he chiefly remains is a love interest.
Love, Sitara is acclaimed production designer Vandana Kataria’s second outing as a director after the nuanced Noblemen (2018). The filmmaker gets human emotions but portrays them in the film, at times, with excessive melodrama. I found myself zoning out often, unbothered by what happened to Sitara and the fam. Sometimes films are like that, neither good or bad, merely meh.
Film: Love, Sitara
Director: Vandana Kataria
Cast: Sobhita Dhulipala, Rajeev Siddhartha, Sonali Kulkarni, B. Jayashree, Virginia Rodrigues, Sanjay Bhutiani
Streamer: Zee5
Rating : 2/5