Pritha Chakraborty's "Mukherjee Da'r Bou" tries to surf all of our daily lives with a pinch of love. The-justified-2-hour-long-film teaches us the core concept of humanity, which is 'belief,' in the most beautiful way possible. Now, obviously the word 'belief' can be distinguished into different contexts depending upon situation & Pritha Chakraborty just manages to capture the situations with her touch of brilliance. The film, right from the beginning, is built and carried upon in a way which is ought to leave you awed.
However, as easy as the plot may sound, fact is, it is not. And that's just the beauty in itself. The story is filled with metaphors, crisp dialogues & and all those outcomes, sudden conclusions, desires & everything will keep you engaged throughout the course of 2 hours while forcing to question yourself. And that's exactly where Rituparna Sengupta's character comes into play; or rather your mind. That particular character drives the whole film to the direction it needed to go & for that, Pritha Chakraborty should be praised (again)!
But not taking away anything from Rituparna Sengupta's beautiful, yet, short performance either. Of course, her character was one dimensional with great prowess and she neatly did her role. While on the other hand, both Koneenica Bannerjee & Anusuya Majumdar's typical "Bangali Baari'r Bou" characters were complicated, outdated (intentionally) & very difficult to portray. Yet, they managed to overcome every challenges without any flaws. Especially Koneenica Bannerjee was magnificent in her role of a typical Bengali homemaker & I believe, Anusuya Majumdar's character only got to shine at fullest extent because of Koneenica Bannerjee's performance only. Apart from them, Biswanath Basu was probably the only weak point but Pritha Chakroborty still managed to get the best out of him by using him wisely. Rest of the casting such as Aparajita & Badshah haven't had the times to shine as they were never meant to but however they managed to leave a statement with such short roles.
Another plus point of the film was its background scoring by Indradip Dasgupta. And I believe, that background scoring played a massive role in strengthening the metaphorical points, the practical outcomes & most importantly, the climax. Though, I cannot say the same for the songs. They weren't unnecessary but their absence wouldn't have made any difference. While on a technical note, I can do nothing but praise the stellar cinematography. It captured the essence of Kolkata, lives of middle-class families, the different perspectives of thinking & what not.
Overall, "Mukherjee Da'r Bou" raises a lot of questions about acceptance, taboos & most importantly, the evergreen chaotic relationships of mother-in-law & daughter-in-law spread throughout the unreachable corners of our country with a pinch of love & sensibility on top of the old school concept most of the TV serials use nowadays for "entertaining us." The film teaches you that complaining is easy, questioning the reason behind instead is not, among the countless other things & leaves you in a state of confusion, utter disbelief, and maybe regret. At the end of the day, the film may as well end up offending you to prove its point further but if it doesn't, be confident about "Mukherjee Da'r Bou" being nothing short of a masterpiece.
