‘Fussclass Dhabade’ review: A bittersweet saga about three siblings who love to hate each other

The Marathi movie Fussclass Dhabade begins like a Bollywood film – with a song celebrating a pre-wedding ceremony. Turmeric-faced dancers in co-ordinated costumes move about in neat formations. The family members look ecstatic to be together in the same space for such a momentous occasion.

But they don’t belong to a traditional Bollywood clan. They aren’t the Chaturvedis from Hum Saath Saath Hain or the Raichands from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. They are the Dabhades.

They are closer to the Twists from the Malayalam movie Home. They like to argue. To pick on old wounds and inflict new ones. Nothing lightens the mood better than a loudly aired barb or an embarrassing revelation.

Fussclass Dhabade is forever chasing the darkness that follows the rainbow. Although overstuffed, tonally all over the place at times and ultimately conventional, Hemant Dhome’s movie also acutely explores a family dynamic that feels familiar – sometimes uncomfortably so.

The bittersweet film kicks off with the Prashant-Komal wedding. Both are bashful virgins who have no clue how to consummate their union. The film’s comedy is sometimes frenetically paced. But in the sequences of Prashant (Amey Wagh) and Komal (Rajshri Bhave) in their bedroom, alone at last as well as terrified in each other’s company, the movie slows down for brilliantly observed birds-and-bees encounters.

Prashant is the…

Read more