Mad, Sad & Bad

Young, Indian writer-director Avie Luthra delivers a jaundiced, sporadically funny and sharp-mouthed comedy-drama in 'Mad, Sad & Bad'. Bracketed by the funeral of a conventional if dangerously Bacardi-addicted Indian mother (Leena Dhingra), it examines in flashback the lives of her offspring: unmarriable Rashmi (Meera Syal), ‘sex addict’ psychologist Hardeep (Zubin Varla) and sitcom writer Atul (Nitin Ganatra). The movie shows initial promise, not least in the way Luthra’s stiff, almost philosophical script attempts to adjust its attitudes towards cultural assimilation and dysfunctional familial relations to reflect those of its conflicted thirtysomething, British-born protagonists. But his touch deserts him elsewhere, and a disconcerting fluctuation in tone – from sorrowful satire to cheesy sitcom – proves the film’s fatal flaw.