Film

Mad, Sad & Bad

Cert: 15

Description: Self-absorbed psychiatrist Hardeep, his writer brother writer Atul and lonely, spinster sister Rashmi struggle to shake themselves out of a rut in a comedic snapshot of a contemporary family on the brink of a nervous breakdown. The three siblings are thrown together in emotional turmoil by the death of their domineering mother, forcing Atul to confront his relationship woes with sculptor Julia.

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Dir: Avie Luthra.

Cast: Nitin Ganatra, Andrea Riseborough, Zubin Varla, Leena Dhingra, Meera Syal

Country: UK.

Year: 2009.

Duration: 90mins

It’s an indian family affair in Mad, Sad & Bad

Mad, Sad & Bad: Zubin Varla, Meera Syal and Nitin Ganatra

Mixed-up kids: Zubin Varla, Meera Syal and Nitin Ganatra as the three dysfunctional siblings

By Derek Malcolm
31 Jul 2009

Avie Luthra must be the only graduate of the National Film School who is also a practising psychiatrist. Perhaps this is why his first feature is so sharp about the dysfunctional Indian family at its centre.

Mad, Sad & Bad, it must be said, is not made with any great flair. But Luthra extracts good performances from his cast and his writing gives them something to do once the story gets going.

The best turn comes from Meera Syal as the daughter of the family, whose widowed mother (Leena Dhingra) despairs of her ever getting married and forces her on a series of devastating blind dates. She cleverly underplays and never for a moment hits a false note.

Mother’s two sons are a sex-mad psychiatrist (Zubin Varla) and a writer of an Asian sitcom (Nitin Ganatra) whose wife (Andrea Riseborough) is tired of his two-timing. Everybody in the film is mad, sad or bad and there is a knowing sense of reality to the portrait of an Asian family.

Luthra tries hard to work a passage through comedy towards relevance and doesn’t always succeed. But if you don’t mind the absence of cinematic style it works surprisingly well in the end.