Sir

Sir starring Tilotama Shome and Vivek Gomber is a very moving debate about the accurate idea of understanding. The class divide is indeed a theme that gets represented in this movie. But the simplistic yet deeply affecting narrative of this love story by Rohena Gera has a very charming optimism that doesn’t skip the social reality. It explores the idea of empathy, sweetly, and realistically.

Ratna is a maid who works for a man named Ashwin. Ashwin is in the construction field, taking care of his father’s business. The story here is set against the backdrop of the broken engagement of Ashwin. Ratna has her own aspirations in life, and at the same time, she understands the situation through which Ashwin was going through. The evolution of this relationship is what we see in Sir.

The human story aspect of this movie is what fascinated me. The irony of life is also evident in the narrative. The place Ashwin wants to leave to get some peace of mind is the place Ratna finds as a place of hope. At one point, she tells Ashwin that before knowing him, she thought every rich person was living a happy life. Through many such dialogues and moments, Rohena Gera navigates you to an emotional space where you will eventually be thinking about the basic emotional connection between two individuals. Ratna and Ashwin can understand each other even though there wasn’t anything common between them.

Rohena Gera keeps it extremely minimal. Her idea of portraying a maid with aspirations doesn’t make that character unreal. She is that obedient servant who never gets irritated, and the progressiveness in her thought process comes from her life experiences. Certain moments in the movie where she tries to communicate her life lessons to Ashwin, with that insecurity of being a maid, where actually lovely bits in the movie that can brighten you up. The visuals are mainly happening inside the apartment of Ashwin, and the cinematography sort of used each location to represent an emotion. Whenever the characters are on the rooftop, there is a sense of enlightenment happening inside the story. Whenever Ratna is in a very concerning space, we are seeing her in a claustrophobic space.

Tilotama Shome as Ratna is fantastic. She gets the nuances of that character so beautifully. In her combination scenes with the other maid, one can see how she manages to make that character stand out as an independent individual and also be someone in that same group. Whenever she becomes vulnerable, the visible change is extremely minimal, yet we can feel her sense of angst. Vivek Gomber as Ashwin neatly did his part. The character of Ashwin is actually a bit more open, and thus, it never felt like a complex character to pull off. The chemistry between the two was also pretty graceful.

Sir is a charming romantic drama rooted in reality. It doesn’t try to be an escapist cinema that gives you a sense of happiness by showing a very filmy story. Rohena Gera has made a movie that shows us the magic of understanding and empathy in a sensible relationship.

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By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.

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