Will Classist Indian Society Accept The Love Story Between A Man And Domestic Worker In SIR?

In a highly class conscious society like India, will the love between a domestic help and the very eligible bachelor she works for gain legitimacy? Watch Sir – Is Love Enough.

A movie trailer which talks about love spanning across classes in an Indian context is being the buzz of the town and rightly so! Karan Johar Shankar Mahadevan Faye Dsouza Rajeev Masand, and many other industry stalwarts are sharing the trailer and talking about it.

The trailer of Sir- Is Love Enough? was released by Zee Music Company on March 5, 2020. The movie is set to be released on March 20, 2020. It is directed by Rohena Gera and it stars Tillotama Shome and Vivek Gomber in leading roles.

The film is not centered only on the theme of love. The female protagonist has her own aims and ambitions, and it is also about her journey of fulfilling those dreams which she dreamt about and envisioned for herself.

Watch the trailer here

Winning awards

Sir was premiered in India last year at the Jagran Film Festival. It has been screened at film festivals in more than 20 countries- France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Netherlands, etc. to name a few.

At the 19 Annual New York Indian Film Festival, the movie won the award for the Best Film and Tillotama Shome bagged the award for the Best Actress.

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The film was showcased at Cannes too where director Rohena Gera became the first female filmmaker to win the Gan Foundation Award. It has also won Audience Awards in Amsterdam and Birmingham.

How did this film happen?

Coming back to the movie, Gera speaks about how the issue of class divide is something which she faced as a child. Having a live-in nanny as a small child, she grew more attached to her and the issues of racism and segregation within her own household is something she saw at a young age.

In an interview at Cannes, Gera says, “the film is quite unusual in the way it takes on an issue and I am really happy that the committee could connect to that because in many ways it is a very, very Indian film; even in the treatment of the issues.” The fact that this film found takers in a European setting and the European audience could connect to it speaks for the film.

When Shome read the script of the movie, it made her feel very uncomfortable and she was tempted to directly skip to the last page and see what the film would resolve to. The film exposes a lot of prejudices which a lot of us are guilty of having. “Prejudices which are archaic, prejudices which are redundant and prejudices which really shouldn’t exist. But they do exist within,” said Shome in an interview at Cannes.

Older Bollywood movies on similar themes

Bollywood is known for making love stories which are sometimes unrealistic or stories which makes you feel uncomfortable and leaves you with questions to ponder upon.

This is not the first time we are coming across a Bollywood film which talks about love between people who hail from different classes of the society. In modern days, however, films like these have taken a backseat. But we do have examples of such movies in the olden days – most of which were typical masala films, and unrealistic.

The most classic example is Bobby (1973) starring Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia where a rich business tycoon falls in love with the daughter of a fisherman. In Laadla (1994), a factory owner marries a union leader. Then there is Raja Hindustani (1996) starring Aamir Khan and Karisma Kapoor where a rich girl falls in love with a taxi driver.

The question is, Sir shows a similar situation much more realistically, something that can happen. Are we willing to let go of our class-consciousness and embrace it?

The trailer promises a lot. If the movie depicts the issues realistically, it will be a big thing for the country where notions of a feudal and hierarchical society exist still in the vacuum.

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