Saas Bahu aur Sensex

Warner Bros's first foray into Bollywood is not your stock masala movie. Female director Shona Urvashi’s second effort is an unconventional comedy about a group of diverse middle-class Indian housewives who flirt with the Indian Stock Exchange (‘the Sensex’). It offers some accurate insights into ‘anything is possible’ in new ‘shining India’. Humour is evoked at the adoption of American accents in call centres, at trashy addictive Indian family soaps (‘Mother in law was once a virgin’) and at Tamil potboilers. Despite progressive intentions, its breezy and unchallenging view of modern day Mumbai life where everyone lives in harmony and is share-obsessed is too simplistic. In light of recent events, its fulsome praise for the upward spiral of the financial market is misjudged.