Love, Sitara doesn't flesh out the people or their problems enough to give us a glimpse into their minds, observes Sukanya Verma.
Love, Sitara starts off by quoting Leo Tolstoy's opening line from Anna Karenina -- All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
As if to elaborate on what's in store, Sobhita Dhulipala's voiceover mentions how her family's real superpower lies in concealing its true feelings.
The sarcasm behind her disclaimer is slowly laid bare when an award-winning interior designer Sitara (Dhulipala) from Mumbai arrives to her ancestral home in Kerala along with her chef fiancé Arjun (a dispassionate Rajeev Siddhartha with daddy issues the movie only skims through) to plan their wedding.
When the twain's folks come together, it's not their South versus North culture clash but the underlying tensions within their own family dynamics that render them dysfunctional.
Director Vandana Kataria's relationship drama unfolds over the usual musings on marriage and an infidelity angle, which -- for a premise like this -- is almost always inescapable.
At its core though, it's a old-fashioned tale of women told by women where the insecurities and infirmities of three generations of female protagonists are at the centre of its emotional storm.
Majority of its behind-the-scenes action, too, has women at helm -- direction, writing, editing, production, costumes, choreography.
Heartening as that may be, it&'s nearly not enough.
Love, Sitara is much too banal and blandly told to become the slice-of-womanhood it set out to be.
Earlier on, in an interview to editor-film-maker Namrata Rao (in a cameo), Sitara shares how she likes to 'design' her own happiness.
Only all her decisions point at her poor impulses and thinly-veiled hypocrisy.
A strong, independent professional harbouring secrets, Sitara is not all that different from Tara of Made in Heaven but there's a starry-eyed impracticality to Sitara's follies, which the perceptive Sobhita makes sure to distinguish.
What starts out as an urban couple rushing towards a social obligation with a 'let's get it over with' attitude grows into a soap opera revolving around Sitara’s family and their muddled state of affairs.
Between Sitara's fretting, frowning grandma 'Amumma' (B Jayashree) with whom she shares a fond camaraderie, her docile mother (Virginia Rodrigues), her free-spirited aunt (Sonali Kulkarni) and a rivalry between them that can be traced all the way back to their childhood, the young woman receives many a words of counsel on men and marriage.
Some of these conversations carry the same air of anxiety as the agony aunt columns of yore.
But when played out against the serene surroundings and sprawling homes of Kerala's regional allure by a diverse bunch of actresses, they acquire some mundane charm.
Problem is Love, Sitara cannot decide what sort of feminism it wants to portray.
Just by the virtue of having women at the forefront doesn't translate to an empowered worldview.
The grandmother's roots of resentment stem from a betrayal but its belated revelation makes it seem like a last-minute plot twist and not at all genuine.
The mother's stance on adultery goes from cool to hysterical in the wink of an eye.
The aunt's 'be selfish' motto collapses as soon as she's confronted by the prospect of ending up alone.
Even the headstrong best friend wastes no time falling for Sitara's childhood best friend because Cupid has an exclusive contract for Hindi movies.
Thematically, I found it to be a lot similar to Jocelyn Moorhouse's 1995 ensemble, How To Make An American Quilt wherein a club of elderly ladies and their imperfect romantic experiences from the past help a confused bride-to-be decide her future. Except Love, Sitara ends up being a mostly confused drama about a clueless bride-to-be.
The women are either needy, in denial or end up eating the humble pie.
The men are little more than a nonplussed presence whether guilty or not.
Love, Sitara doesn't flesh out the people or their problems enough to give us a glimpse into their minds.
Love, Sitara streams on ZEE5.
