Tehzeeb

[tikistitch]

Hands off, bitch!



This was a good movie. Lots of nice musical numbers, interesting story, and some nifty acting.

Tehzeeb (Urmila Matondkar) is the daughter of a famous playback singer Rukhsana (Shabana Amzi). I started liking this film right there, because most movies sort of conveniently ignore those essential behind the scenes Filmi figures. Anyway, Tehzeeb marries Salim against her mother's wishes (he's played by Arjun Rampal, and, hell, wouldn't you?), and now cares for her mentally ill younger sister Naazeen.

Lots of baggage here: the dad is dead, and Tehzeeb blames mom, as she blames mom for sis's mental illness. And then after a 5-year estrangement, mom decides to come to visit. GET SET FOR FIREWORKS!

As I said, the acting was fun as hell. This is basically a women's picture, with Arjun adding a bit of eye candy. (He's supposed to be a writer, so he narrates, and gets a subplot with an overly amorous publisher - in the video above - but it seems a little tossed in.) Every character (including the little sis) gets their own musical number. Here below we see the family gathered around to see Mom do her thing. Shabana is doing the singing (the actual singer, I gather, is Lata's sister) and Umila is acting.

I had to go through two copies of this movie. The first one, despite saying ON THE BOX that it had English subtitles, turned out to have no subtitles at all. Sort of a risk when you're buying Indian movies.

I need to check out more movies by Urmila, as she's cool. I guess she's appeared in some films as an item girl, but boy, can she act!