I’ll admit that what drew me to Sir, an Indian movie directed by Rohena Gera that was a hit at Cannes last year, was the resemblance of its plot to Roma. Both are movies focussed on the life of a working-class housekeeper, her relationship with her employer(s), and are pervaded by an undercurrent of social commentary. Sir is more conventionally focussed however, less masterfully executed, more palatable to a mainstream audience (at least one that doesn’t mind reading subtitles), but also more susceptible to arduous drama. Yet it is still charming, nicely directed as well, and is certainly making a statement that has the capacity to resonate even outside of India.
It’s the story of Ratna (Tillotama Shome), a young woman from the country working as the live-in servant of a wealthy Bombay property developer Ashwin (Vivek Gomber) to support her study of tailoring and her ambition to be a fashion designer. Steadily, the two grow closer as they relate more their troubles and life experiences, while supporting and aiding in each other’s pursuits.
This plot sounds a lot like and at times does embody that trashy harlequin cliché of the poor simple girl falling for the millionaire, and the crossing of social boundaries for the sake of love. Hell, it may even feel in moments nauseatingly familiar to an E.L. James story –only without the copious sex. Even the title “Sir” is horribly tacky and suggestive. But what makes the film different and quite a bit more bearable than your average star-crossed lovers narrative is that it’s just as focussed on the social drama as the romance –arguably more so. For most of the film the relationship between Ratna and Ashwin is pure sexual tension, without any direct acknowledgement of mutual attraction until late in the story. Instead, an emphasis is placed on the alternative ways they navigate the worlds they inhabit, particularly Ratna and her drive to better her fortunes. In fact if not for that relationship and the films’ weaker moments, Sir could very well be a contemporary remake of Mahanagar, Satyajit Ray’s classic about a working woman in 1960s Calcutta. Gera as a director is more formalist than Ray ever was, she still adheres to certain contrivances of the genre and story type she’s relating, but she can replicate his mood of that earlier film quite well, and the significance of a young woman fighting a world designed against her.
Class disparity is the major theme of this movie as it often is in Indian cinema, due to the rigidity of their complex and problematic caste system. We see the discrimination it affords: Ratna is expected to work for free as a seamstress in exchange for meagre tailoring lessons; she is excluded from at least one business in a gated block. She rides a bus to and from her hometown and around Bombay, while Ashwin has a personal driver. There’s also a linguistic barrier between the two protagonists in that while Ratna speaks primarily Hindi, Ashwin is most comfortable in English, a result of both his upbringing and his time spent as a student in America. Like in many a Ray film (and perhaps in Indian high society itself –my frame of reference is limited I admit), the upper-caste characters slip into English casually, which has the effect of distancing them from the humble, average Indian citizenry. Caste is also the thing that prevents Ashwin from understanding Ratna’s perspective when he ultimately decides he’s falling for her. It’s easy for him to throw caution to the wind in the idea of a taboo relationship with her, but she doesn’t have that luxury, even if she does share his feelings. The love story at the centre of Sir is really just an outlet for Gera’s critique of Indian classism, and she fuses the two wonderfully through such devices as a recurring lateral tracking shot through their adjacent bedrooms and a hand held POV of Ratna awkwardly serving Ashwin during a party.
This being said the film is weak in the moments when it does adhere to stereotype. Both actors are great -in an ideal world this would be an international star-making vehicle for Tillotama Shome, but it is tiresome to see them work through a script that’s not always sharp and scenes that have been played a million times over. There aren’t a lot of them, and they mostly occur in the last act once the nature of their relationship is out in the open between them, but they aren’t interesting. The plot itself is fairly conventional in this regard too and the relationship beats are never unexpected. However I will give credit to some of the choices it makes in the end, which are subversive, even if the final line itself is rather painfully typical.
All in all though, Sir is worth your time, if for nothing else than its central themes and cultural awareness. There’s a sincerity behind the film that transcends its very premise, a method to how the characters move and exist in their disparate circles and what it says about them. And I’d like to see more of that kind of ambition in movies.
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