3BHK Movie Review: Siddharth's Relentless Pursuit Of A Home Leaves No Room For Joy
3BHK, directed by Sri Ganesh, depicts a middle-class family led by Vasudevan (Sarathkumar) struggling to buy a house. The film is a series of failures with few joyful moments.
3BHK Movie Review: This is the kind of movie that is made with the certainty that it would strike a chord with the middle class and their struggles. 'Nalla relate aagum" (It would be very relatable) would have been the feedback about the film at every stage of its making. The bet is all on creating the feeling in the viewer that one is seen, heard or represented. By doing so, filmmaker Sri Ganesh portrays the life of the class as nothing but struggle, stripped of any joy, and the viewer feels the same.
3BHK is the story of a father named Vasudevan (Sarathkumar), struggling to buy his own house. However, every time he gets closer to his dream, the finish line moves further. The entire family is on a mission to buy a 3BHK and move out of their rented house in a cramped complex. A chart is stuck on the living room wall with the goal amount for their dream. Vasudevan's son Prabhu (Siddharth) faces financial pressure, making him fail in his academic pursuits. Despite his relentless efforts, he manages to clear his board exams only with 'just pass' marks. A management seat in a reputed engineering college for Prabhu costs the family more years to reach their goal. Then it's a heart attack, then the wedding of Vasudevan's daughter Aarthy (Chaithra), and then something else. By then, we understand the film's intent and where it is heading.
'Future nalla irukum" (The future will be good) – Vasudevan uses this line to justify every decision he takes for his children. Prabhu wants to study mechanical engineering, but his father pushes him into Information Technology because 'future nalla irukum." Aarthy is married into a rich family for the same reason. In the third act, Prabhu cracks and screams at his father to live in the present, which he should have done even before the interval. The running time is the least of the film's problems. It needed a few happy moments to make the sad ones work.
It is not suffering that makes life bearable, but happiness, even if it is infinitesimal and sporadic. 3BHK lacks that. We needed to get a bit of Vasudevan's good moments to feel for the bad ones, which is basically the whole movie. Instead, what we get is a series of failures. Even Prabhu's success in landing a job doesn't leave a lasting sense of hope.
I wish 3BHK was a social commentary on the obsession with owning a house. It could have been a statement about the paradox of the middle-class dream of buying a home that, in essence, robs one of every other joy: a thesis that Balumahendra's gut-wrenching 1988 film Veedu delivered. But 3BHK ends up as a romantic advertisement of such dreams. All the struggles get romanticised when Vasudevan proclaims that they've 'won the whole city." Looking back at all he has lost in life, the statement begs a question: 'At what cost?"
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