We are Family Review – Disgustingly Bad

Folks, our hopes have been dashed on the altar of Bollywood’s  incompetence.

Here we were fondly hoping that this weekend would be a joyous affair but, alas, man proposes, Bollywood disposes.

Several Indian critics have buggered the latest Karan Johar production We are Family (directed by Sidharth Malhotra).

Shallow, Stay Away, Yawn-Inducing, Disappointing Tearjerker are only some of the missiles critics have hurled at this Kajol-Kareena Kapoor starrer.

Of course, the critics may have a good thing or two to say about the movie but the bottom line –We are Family is We are Garbage.

By the way, We are Family is a remake of the Hollywood flick Stepmom (Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts).

Read what a sample of critics had to say about We are Family:

SearchIndia.com:

Not so much a movie as cow-dung flung on the screen, We are Family suffers from intolerably hideous acting, incomprehensibly awful screenplay and insanely bad music….

Guys/Gals, if you take a soldering iron to your balls or boobs you’re likely to inflict less pain on yourself compared to watching this piece of shit called We are Family.

Rediff

We Are Family begins on a note of confusion. As the film progresses, the sense of confusion increases leaving the viewer disoriented. At the end of two hours, debut director Sidharth Malhotra’s film — which is intended to be a sob story — did leave the audience in tears. Of boredom.

….Stepmom fans, please keep away. Don’t even watch the trailer. Actually, the same advice is valid even for those who haven’t seen Stepmom.

NDTV

Saddled with a screenplay that simply doesn’t provide the instant invigoration of the original film, Kareena is unable to pack any real punch into the character of a career-minded girl who must prepare herself to play mother against all odds to the three children of the once-married man she loves (Arjun Rampal). Full marks to Kareena for effort but much less for effect.

…Lack of depth is the norm in We Are Family. The lighting is uniformly dazzling and the film is bathed in the same sort of soulless blue and white blush all through. The makers obviously don’t have much faith in variable lighting as a means of orchestrating moods.

Reuters India

Which is one of the biggest problems of the film — everything about it is so cosmetic, even the emotions, that it’s hard to be touched by anything. Based on the 1998 Hollywood film “Stepmom”, the only Indian-ness the script has is to insert clichés about what an ideal Indian woman should be.

…Director Sidharth Malhotra plays too safe and doesn’t explore any of the dynamics of a household that has two women fighting for a man and his children. Also, Rampal and the kids put in such a watered-down performance compared to the two women, you wonder why they are fighting for them in the first place.

“We are Family” is at best a pretty but shallow film.

Live Mint

In the Hindi version, even with Kajol and Kareena Kapoor in the thick of this tussle, two of Hindi cinema’s leading ladies who can claim to be actors, the melodrama is yawn-inducing. Director Siddharth Malhotra (the film is produced by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions) does not trust the audience to feel things without layers of emotional hokum slabbed on top of a very simplistic story. Add to this, some unbelievably regressive, ‘ideal-Indian-woman’ moral posits.

Times of India

…Herein lies the chink… Wish there was that something `Extra’ to look forward to in We Are Family, specially when the film boasts of two of the most suitable contenders — Kajol and Kareena — for the emotional tug of war that spunky Susan Sarandon and svelte Julia Roberts unleashed on screen not so long ago. With two such fine desi actors re-interpreting the cult roles, there was immense scope for originality, chemistry and fireworks. Of course, the two do keep flashing their light eyes at each other and exchanging barbed words when the individual territories are intruded upon. But the fire doesn’t burn the screen and the smoke just doesn’t hit your eyes.

..Sadly, Shankar-Ehsan-Loy’s music score leaves you cold with nothing memorable to carry home..

DNA:

As is typical of a Karan Johar film, We Are Family boasts of lavish backdrops and picturesque settings but is devoid of intensity, so much so that it almost looks superficial…..

Add to it the extended climax (yawn!) which is thoroughly ravaged by the quintessentially melodramatic Bollywood extra touch (the age leap that takes you straight to Aliya’s wedding), and what you have in the end is a disappointing tearjerker.

Related Stories:
We are Family Review – Disgustingly Bad
Stepmom Review – Can B’Wood Apes Match This?

  Kajol, Kareena, We Are Family