3 BHK Movie Review

Sri Ganesh, the director who made his debut with the crime thriller Tamil film, 8 Thottakkal(2017), took a complete U-Turn and selected an emotional family drama script for his second film. He took the inspiration from the boo ‘3BHK Veedu’, by Aravindh Sachidanandam and came up with ‘3 BHK’. Siddharth transformed his look to appear as a teenager in the film. R. Sarathkumar and Devayani were roped in to play the characters of a middle-class father and mother. After grabbing the attention of the audience with a feel-good trailer, the film was released in theatres today. Did the director come with a feel-good and heartwarming emotional drama? How did Siddharth play his character in the film which spans around twenty-five years(i.e. from a teenager to a forty-year-old man)? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Vasudevan(R. Sarathkumar), a middle-class family man with a wife and two kids, aims to own a three-bedroom home. It is life lifetime goal to own a home and make beautiful memories in the home with his son(Siddharth), daughter(Meetha Raghunath) and the wife(Devayani). Did Vasudevan make his dream of owning a home, a reality? What are the challenges the four members of the family faced while pursuing their dream of owning a home? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Siddharth in the role of Prabhu delivered one of his career best performances. In an era where the makers of a few films are making a mockery in the name of De-ageing, Siddharth in 3 BHK transformed himself into multiple looks that span over twenty-five years and looked believable in every look. Especially, his teenage look did not appear odd at all. Not just the look transformation, in the role of a son of a middle-class family, he delivered a superb performance throughout the film.

Sarathkumar in the role of Vasudevan delivered a very commendable performance. There are quite a sequences in the film where she performed brilliantly. His transformation from a forty-year-old middle-aged man to a sixty-plus-year-old man looked good on screen. Meetha Raghunath in the role of Aarthy performed well. Her performance during the breakout sequence in the second half deserves a special mention. Devayani in the role of the mother made her presence felt. She delivered a good performance in the role of a mother who unconditionally loves her family.

Yogi Babu in the role of a real estate agent appeared in a few sequences and generated good fun with his trademark dialogue delivery and screen presence. Chaithra J. Achar in the role of Aishu delivered a good performance. Her chemistry with Siddarth worked out well. Her performance and expressions in at least three sequences in the second half deserves a special mention.

Technicalities:

Amrit Ramnath scored good music for the film. Both his songs and the background score worked out well without disturbing the flow of the film. Dinesh B. Krishnan & Jithin Stanislaus’s cinematography is neat. Both of them delivered what was required. Ganesh Siva’s editing would have been a bit better in the second half. Shanthi Talkies’ production values are neat. Special mention to the producers for believing and investing in a feel-good emotional drama script.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Relatable Story & Characters
2.⁠ ⁠Realistic Screenplay
3.⁠ ⁠Subtle Humour
4.⁠ ⁠Actors Performances
5.⁠ ⁠Siddharth’s Look Transformation

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Cinematic Liberty In The Third Act
2.⁠ ⁠Drag In The Second Half
3.⁠ ⁠Slow Pace

Analysis:

Owning a home is the most sought-after lifetime ambition for most people worldwide. It is especially a dream of every middle-class family in India. While growing up, most of us must have witnessed our parents working tirelessly and sacrificing even the smallest of joys to buy a home for the family. We also must have observed parents, especially the fathers from the yesteryear generation, doing everything they can to move their families from a ‘House’ to a ‘Home’. Sri Ganesh’s ‘3 BHK’ is the story of one such family. It is the journey of a middle-class family of four in a big city with an ambition to buy and live in a comfortable three-bedroom home.

Remember that annoying house owner who always creates silly rules and irritates you and your family when living in a rented house? Remember your parents getting you an admission into a good school by going over and above their financial capacity? Remember your sibling who is good at studies is fine to study at a government school because our parents can not afford to send both kids in the family to a private school? Remember your father taking you to the terrace to talk to you and advise you when he got to know you had made a mistake or did something without informing your parents? Remember your father shouting or letting his anger out at random people instead of you when you got not-so-good marks in a public exam? Remember that person at the EAMCET admission centre advising you and your family to go for the Information Technology Branch instead of Mechanical or Civil or Electrical Engineering, because the future belongs to computers and technology?

3 BHK has all the aforementioned and a few more beautiful moments which most of us must have experienced in our lives. The film takes you on a nostalgia ride and makes your eyes teary at so many places. The director, Sri Ganesh, took a very relatable story and wrote the screenplay around it with heartwarming moments one after the other. There is a montage sequence in the film during a song where young Prabhu(Siddharth) repairs an old mixer grinder and makes it work in all its glory again. The director used this montage sequence so beautifully to let us know that Prabhu loves repairing machines and during the climax, the director came up with a very well-executed pay-off sequence to it. The way the director blended subtle humour wherever required deserves a special mention. He handled both the emotions and the humour in a very balanced way.

On the flipside, the attempt to take cinematic liberty during the final act after executing the first two acts in the film very realistically with relatable moments is a bit of a tough nut to swallow. In reality, how many of us give up a well-paying tech job to pursue passion at the age of thirty-four when we have ageing parents, a sister who is going through a divorce, a niece and a wife, to take care of? Though the heart asks us to start pursuing the passion, a majority of us ‘adjust’ and continue to do the well-paying tech job to take care of the family, aren’t we? 3 BHK should have become a gem of a film for its relatable portrayal of characters and situations had the director followed the realistic approach in the third act instead of trying to give a feel-good unrealistic end to Prabhu’s character ambition. Also, the second half of the film at times gives you a feeling of being dragged. Just when you think the family is finally set to buy a home, a roadblock comes up out of nowhere at least twice in the second half.

Overall, a 3 BHK has a few flaws but it has its heart in the right place. There are quite a few moments in the film where your heart and mind go for an emotional rollercoaster ride. And, if you hail from a middle-class family, there are high chances for you to relate to many sequences in the film. If you like emotionally driven family drama films, you can happily watch 3 BHK at a theatre near you.

Bottomline: Heart-Warming

Rating – 2.75/5