Subhash K Jha takes us back to 2016 and Karan Johar-Shakun Batra’s critically acclaimed Kapoor & Sons that starred Rishi Kapoor, Sidharth Malhotra, Fawad Khan, Alia Bhatt, Ratna Pathak Shah, and Rajat Kapoor in this fantastic feature. Plus, as a special bonus, we hear from Shakun Batra about the making of Kapoor & Sons, “The movie’s been a blessing and has given me so much love… and I owe so much of where I am today to that film coming together and all the people who made it happen.” But more from Batra in a few lines — let’s revisit the Kapoor & Sons.
It was Leo Tolstoy who said it. “All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The family in Kapoor & Sons, played with magnificent eloquence by actors who know their job, is happy on the surface. But scratch the polished exterior, and you get frightening fissures.
It is up to the outsider who peers into the family scene to make some sense of what lies beneath.
And this Kapoor family- my God!-is not dysfunctional. It’s deliriously unhinged in its crisscross of unexplored emotions waiting to burst open in the eleventh hour.
First things first, Kapoor & Sons is not afraid to peer into the abyss of a family besieged by unresolved issues that tumble out towards the end with the urgency of a drama that must be played out before time runs out. Shakun Batra and his co-writer Ayesha Devitre Dhillon conceive a family tree that never gets overburdened by overstatement. The narrative allows the “tragedy of an unhappy family” to play out non-laboriously, giving the characters a chance to grow in ways that they cannot control.
For a film laden with family secrets, there is a surprising lack of opulent drama in the narrative. The conflicts are played out remarkably drained of melodrama but replete with a kind a dark wicked humour that we seldom experience in mainstream cinema.
There is this deviously written scene where a bewildered plumber tries to fix the kitchen sink while the entire family bickers loudly about its financial problems.
“How much do you want?” the family stops squabbling long enough to ask. “Whatever you can afford,” whimpers the plumber, desperate to make his getaway. We, providentially, never feel hemmed in by this family’s domestic distress, which grows inwardly and finally implodes in scenes that run into each other towards the end in the way life tends to outrun man-made plans.
There is a lot of naughty humour in the narrative emanating largely from Rishi Kapoor’s 90-going-on-19 patriarch’s character. Especially delicious is this real-life Kapoor’s ogling at Mandakini’s bare-breasted images from Raj Kapoor’s Ram Teri Ganga Maili. Of course, the fact that Rishi Kapoor’s real-life father directed the erotic feast is a killer of an in-house joke.
Rishi Kapoor is undoubtedly the showstopper and the scene stealer here, followed closely by Ratna Pathak Shah, whose portrayal of the worn-out housewife desperately holding on to shreds of optimism is pitch-perfect. Rajat Kapoor, as the father fighting off financial and extramarital problems, is sullen and subdued.
But after Rishi, it is Fawad Khan as the family’s “perfect son” who is controlled and in command of his character’s troubled inner-world. Fawad effortlessly chews up Sidharth Malhotra in every scene that they appear together. Not that Malhotra doesn’t try. He does. But the effort shows each time Fawad is in the same frame. They play writer-brothers who have always been at loggerheads for reasons that appear silly and trivial. But that’s the nature of family secrets. They rip a relevance only in the discontinuity that creeps into family ties.
Alia Bhatt’s sunshine girl act is problematic. She is more annoying than cute. We are supposed to fawn over her character’s feyness. But her antics, including kissing a man she has just met, merits as borderline brazenness. As the only major character who is not part of the Kapoor family, Alia needed to justify her presence far more strongly.
The really strong moments in the film occur when Ratna Pathak Shah’s maternal allegiance is threatened by the revelation regarding her favourite son’s sexuality. No one mentions the taboo ‘g’ word. But the atmosphere crackles with nerve-racking tension once Fawad’s secret is out of the closet. Here, the narrative needed to give Ratna Shah and Fawad Khan more room to grapple. But there are other family crises to deal with, and sadly, those are not half as gripping as this one.
Like the family it presents, Kapoor & Sons does not purport to be a perfect nor a seamless family drama. It does something far more valuable. It takes all the flaws and imperfections of a dysfunctional family and trans-creates them into a drama of muted grievances and unspoken recriminations.
And Rishi Kapoor’s ‘Daadu’ act makes you forgive all the flaws of immaturity evident in some of the pivotal performances.
The family secret that unravels towards the end when…well, things falls apart and the center cannot hold. Or so it seems. Until director Shakun Batra manages to make the loose ends come together in a messy kind of way that is so integral to the way families are. Never one. Ever always fun. All tangled in inter-personal relations, governed by emotions that they seldom understand. So, who are we to judge them?
As promised, in the special chat, Shakun Batra not on delves into the making of Kapoor & Sons but also touches on his Gehariyaan and working with Karan Johar as producer.
Where do you place Kapoor & Sons in your body of work?
Ah, definitely right up there. But I hardly have a huge body of work yet. So, it’s a tricky one. Maybe you can ask me this question after I direct four more films.
You started with Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu with Kareena and Imran Khan, then Kapoor & Sons and Gehraiyan… How would you describe the journey so far?
All these films have come into my career and life at a time when I have wanted to make something to express myself. But Kapoor & Sons definitely came closest to my clearest expression.
Rishi Kapoor, Ratna Pathak Shah, Rajat Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Siddharth Malhotra, and Fawad Khan, all in your second film?
Yes. I was young at the time, and it was a very scary time for me. But everyone on the film became really close and very soon their support made it easy.
Rishi Kapoor was very, very upset with you while shooting?
Rishi Sir and I had differences. But he gave me one of my most memorable characters, and I’ll be eternally indebted for what he gave this film. And I don’t think anyone could have brought that warmth and love to the film but him.
He later told me Kapoor & Sons was one of his best films.
That’s one of the nicest things I’ve heard. He’s been a pillar of strength for me throughout my directorial career, a friend, and a mentor. I think it’s the most amazing working relationship I’ve experienced with Karan Johar and Dharma Productions. I consider myself really fortunate that I’ve had producers as solid as Karan and Apoorva Mehta for all my films.
Would you say human relationships are your forte?
I don’t know what my forte would be. I didn’t know it then when we made Kapoor & Sons, and I’m not sure about it now. But yes, relationship dynamics amongst people is what motivates me to write and make films. I don’t necessarily enjoy big set pieces, but I always enjoy people being people and a relationship that the audience and film characters can create with each other for those 2-3 hours. That’s always special.
Looking back, how do you feel about Gehraiyan?
After all the polarising noise around the film, I think I managed to have peace with what I did right and what I would do differently. But I don’t put so much pressure on myself. I had the most amazing time working on it, and again, I am thankful for every opportunity I’ve had to tell a story. Sometimes, it lands right, and sometimes, it doesn’t. The idea is to keep doing it with love and sincerity and that it relates with the audiences. I still love the film, but I would prepare the audiences differently for the ending that was coming. Just so that the surprise tonal shift in the end would land better.
