It’s hard to identify Amitabh Bachchan under the layers of makeup and prosthetics he is wearing as the ornery Mirza. Still, he commands a presence that persists despite his advanced age, as his character vies for a 100 year old mansion in Lucknow, bickering with one of his tenants, Baankey (Ayushmann Khurrana), who hasn’t paid his rent of 30 rupees for several months.
The battle between these two is framed by the popular puppet tale of bickering between the young Gulabo and the old but firm Sitabo. Mirza steals one of Baankey’s light bulbs, cuts his section’s power and locks them out of bathrooms when the main bathroom’s wall gets caved in, courtesy of Baankey. Baankey, for his part, evades Mirza when he comes to ask for rent, making his younger sister feign a fever.
Soon, their battle escalates, and a lawyer and a government official become involved. The tale of two bickering men expands into a social satire about encroaching modernization.
This is a film anchored by the auras and performances of two Bollywood stars. Amitabh Bachchan plays Mirza with the attention to detail of a character actor, while Ayushmann Khurrana adds layers of regret and vanquished dreams to his Everyman portrayal of Baankey. The mansion, Fatima Mahal, has a character of its own, despite its fading, dilapidated looks.
Director Shoojit Sircar and writer Juhi Chaturvedi (who both worked with Bachchan in Piku) focus on the idiosyncrasies of these men as well as the worldly wisdom of the women around them. Guddo (Drishti Shrivastava), one of Baankey’s sisters, is quick with both her mouth and mind, used to standing up to people. In fact, the film ends with one of the women intervening in this escalating war in an unexpected way. Cinematographer Avik Mukhopadhyay renders the world in yellow and green, lending more character to the lived-in streets of Lucknow.
The main theme of the film is greed, which Baankey spells out late in the film. “Greed is poison,” he tells Mirza, who retorts that no one has died from it.
Mirza, who married a woman who was seventeen years older than him in the hopes of inheriting the mansion, has waited too long for his moment of triumph. Baankey, on the other hand, is at the end of his wits. He didn’t get to complete his education after his father died, taking over the wheat mill and looking after his sisters. He is bitter to a fault, and when the government official, Gyanesh Shukla (Vijay Raaz) offers him the prospect of getting a LIG flat in return for the mansion being declared a historical building, he latches onto the opportunity. Mirza, of course, tries to sell the mansion before Gyanesh can claim it for the government. This scramble for wealth culminates unexpectedly in the climax.
Overall, Gulabo Sitabo is a charming narrative filled with wit and humor. Its pacing suffers at times, but its stars mostly succeed in keeping the audience engaged for most of its runtime. Sircar, like in his other films, focuses on the lifestyles and worries of ordinary people, showing how their vices got the better of them.