Speaking of meaning, Family Star aspires to balance sensibility with humor in its portrayal of middle-class life, a concept that the film is absolutely in love with and cannot stop romanticising. Since it wants to appear all sensible and meaningful, it cannot afford to make jokes like the one we saw in Samajavaragamana (2023), which invokes a great volume of humour from its middle-class setting and the money-minded protagonist. Here, there is an attempt to lionise the middle-class-ness of our hero, Govardhan (Vijay Deverakonda). We see him for the first time as he jumps in the air to cross a car with a goon sack as he runs to the government-run shop to get onions. It overdoes this middle-class angle to such an extent that it comes across as downright condescending at one point and is naturally, neither funny nor relatable, as intended. It’s funny how the makers believed this middle-class protagonist would come across as relatable.
Let me give you an example. A loan shark enters Govardhan’s house and misbehaves with the sister-in-law, demanding for his money to be returned. Cut to a mass fight sequence where Govardhan brings his entire family to the loan shark’s place in an auto (I was wondering how they all fit in just one auto), and tells the kids to watch and learn how to deal with bullies. He breaks heads, slashes bodies, and makes men fly as some sloka-like vocals play in the background, and the children look traumatised by the bloodshed they have been forced to watch. The trauma of the children is still not the biggest issue with the sequence. It is the final punch, which is a glorified, polished rape threat, that the hero delivers to the bad guy. Didn’t the whole fight begin because the bad guy slyly warned the sister-in-law to sleep with him? And Govardhan is paying it back with a rape threat to the women in the bad guy’s house. The film reeks of such problems that are dropped so casually. It lacks depth and everything is simplified. I’m not someone to look for political correctness or even logic in a film as long as it’s entertaining. But in Family Star, it is just not possible to overlook the glitches, both moral and craft-wise.
