Toh Baat Pakki? Damn straight... Because I Said So!
Who said marrying off your youngest daughter to the first eligible suitor was just a Bollywood hobby restricted to strict (for some reason always Punjabi) fathers and helpless (often ill/widowed) mothers?
The other day, on a night I really should have bothered to go out, I was flicking channels while home alone and came across, Because I Said So (2007), a movie of the out-on-DVD-in-two-weeks variety starring Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, and no one else I care to remember.
Now, normally the thought of spending 90+ minutes watching Diane Keaton don the same white palazzo pants suit she has over the last 30 years (seeing her in a dress in The Godfather seriously destablised my chakras) would have been enough to keep right on flicking, but the plot line seemed much too retro-Bollywood to pass up.
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| Moore, Graham, Keaton, Parabon Because I Said So (2007) Image: http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/movies/02beca.html |
Unbeknownst to her youngest daughter, Milly (Moore), Daphne Wilder (Keaton) takes out a personals ad to find her a husband. She finds not one, but two potentials. Yes, you heard right--old school, arranged marriage tactics.
We aren't entirely sure what compelled Daphne to do so other than her own assessment that Milly was on the path to spinsterhood because of her current lack of boyfriend, and that, in a nation where 50% of marriages end in divorce, her own failed marriage somehow left Milly deeply emotionally scarred (she overlooks the fact that her two older daughters seemed to have come out OK, and yes, miraculously were able to get married).
Milly displays no obvious or subtle personality disorders. Being in her 20s she is certainly not over the hill, is generally cheerful, and the sole neuroses she seems to have to deal with on a regular basis come from the general direction of her mother. I leave you to fill in the blanks but a few misunderstandings, an ick-worthy scene between mother and three daughters trading orgasm experiences, and a wedding later, the movie ends.
Needless to say, I was unimpressed. Not only did I have to sit through the white palazzo pants suit, a movie about arranged marriages without mehendi songs, red saris, embroidered lehengas, and an evil (or nice) saas just didn't cut it.
But before I could write to the Barjatyas and demand an updated Rajshri version, I got my hands on Toh Baat Pakki!
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| Tabu and Yuvika Chaudhry Toh Baat Pakki! (2010) Image: http://movies.sulekha.com/hindi/toh-baat-pakki/pictures/12.htm |
The Bollywood remake is built around the same plot with the exception that Rajeshwari Saxena (Tabu), a happily married yet somewhat dominating woman, is a small-town middle-class housewife from Palanpur trying to find a suitable husband for her younger sister, Nisha (Yuvika Chaudhry).
As far as knock-offs go, it fares much better than the original. It's a simple, feel good comedy. The dialogue is refreshing, not least because the characters actually bother to speak Hindi (been a long time since I heard it in a Bollywood film) and the costumes are a treat for the eyes (they actually wear Indian clothes). Best of all, there are no cringeworthy orgasm scenes. Typical for a Hindi movie, the ending does stretch and some of the situations are taken too far, but all in all, this film reminds us of simpler times with a wedding thrown in. You get your horse, groom, mandap, and bride to boot.
Sorry Hollywood, when it comes to arranged marriages, Bollywood's got you beat.
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