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Vidya Balan's Trisha, a nagging but well-meaning wife to Farhan Akhtar's hassled husband in Shaadi Ke Side Effects, reminded us of all the vile wives we've seen on screen over the years.
Here's presenting the most memorable of the lot!
They say marriages are made in heaven. But not all wives are angels.
From venomous vixens to nagging nuts, these not-so-better halves of luckless men can make life a living hell.
And in Bollywood’s exaggerated workings, there are quite a few instances of this devious variety. So here it is then, 10 of the Worst Movie Wives on screen.
Mahie Gill, Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns
As the sly and seductive ‘Biwi’ in the title, Mahie Gill takes cunning to another level.
From juggling men to keep her mind off her invalid Saheb to engaging in shocking politics with chilling nonchalance, Gill is certainly no dream bride.
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All her husbands are severely flawed but that doesn’t put off Priyanka Chopra’s Susanna off marriage. Instead she keeps trying her rotten luck and marries six foul chaps in a row.
Clearly, divorce is not an option since she starts to take vicarious pleasure in bumping them off ruthlessly with the help of poison, bullets and snakes.
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Greed gets the better of Sridevi as she decides to sell her compliant husband to a Ms Moneybags in exchange of Rs 2 crore.
Her nouveau-riche status corrupts her mind in no time and she begins to neglect her home and family to embody a wild mix of Uncle Scrooge meets Veronica Lodge until Judaai decides to go into redemption mode.
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As if her dressing sense wasn’t offensive enough.
Vidya Balan gets on her poor hubby’s (and the viewer) nerves with her constant bullying and battering to rob a bank as the over the top Punjabi housewife in Ghanchakkar.
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In this rehash of black and white drama, Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayee, Preity Zinta plays a neurotic version of a haughty Nadira.
As Anil Kapoor’s insecure, spoilt, unstable and irresponsible significant other, she lets her whims ruin several lives.
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Playing on Woody Allen’s definition of the ‘passive aggressive’ type in this Husbands and Wives rip-off, Konkona plays a seemingly sweet wife to Rahul to a frazzled Rahul Bose.
But, man, does she remote control him and gets her way every single time? And when he flees, she finds another willing lamb in Rahul Khanna.
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Inspired by Shakespeare’s celebrated play Macbeth, Tabu conveys the dark side of a woman in love with her husband’s most trusted aide.
It’s not just the adultery but also her Nimmi’s cold-blooded willingness in persuading the lover to kill the spouse that makes her offense truly wicked.
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Bollywood’s favoured idea of a husband-wife conflict is to write the latter as a persistently badgering housewife. Someone who doesn’t leave a single chance to pounce on the pati with her tireless yakking, suspicion, insinuation and cursing.
Suchitra Krishnamurthy essays this virulent prototype in My Wife’s Murder till the argument gets out of hand and she is accidently bumped off.
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Nag, torment, vex, scold and snap – Amrita Arora, along with her equally tyrant mom (Supriya Pilgaonkar), form the most nightmarish wives club a man could think of in Vikram Bhatt’s Awara Paagal Deewana.
Meanwhile, Aftab Shivdasani and Paresh Rawal raise laughs with their misery as the significant other reduced to submissive slaves.
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Remember those horrid second wives in fairy tales like Hansel & Gretel and Cinderella? Now think Bindu’s tantrum-throwing, grouchy, callous and dominating Kamla Bhandari in Biwi Ho Toh Aisi.
She is the exact opposite of what the movie title suggests.
Bollywood’s popular vamp mastered this role to perfection by playing its various versions in her long-lasting career.
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