Gulmohar, which was released yesterday on Disney+ Hotstar, tells the story of a family and their trials and tribulations days before moving out of their beloved house. The treatment and certain situations remind one of Kapoor & Sons and also Monsoon Wedding. There are multiple tracks and at certain places, director Rahul V Chittella has seamlessly moved from one track to another. Some emotional and confrontational moments stand out, more so in the second half, and the film ends on a fine note. On the flipside, the film never really goes on a high or makes eyes moist, though some scenes had potential. A few developments raise questions. The music is poor and moreover, there are far too many characters and it takes time to process and understand who is related to whom. The film, in fact, could have done away with certain characters and it would have still made sense. Speaking of performances, Manoj Bajpayee takes the cake. He’s playing a character older than his real age but he shines. Sharmila Tagore is graceful and a pleasure to see her on screen after ages. Simran leaves a huge mark. Suraj Sharma plays his part with ease. Anuraag Arora is adorable while Amol Palekar steals the show. The same goes for Chandan Roy (Param; of Panchayat fame). Jatin Goswami (Jeetendra Kumar), Santhy (Reshma) and Gandharv Dewan (Irfan) do well. The other actors who deliver fine performances are Kaveri Seth (Divya Batra), Utsavi Jha (Amrita Batra), Talat Aziz (Avinash) and Nargis Nandal (Payal). All in all, Gulmohar is a clean, niche urban entertainer and worth a watch.
My rating – *** out of 5!