English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, 2012)

Cast: Sridevi, Adil Hussain, Mehdi Nabbou, Pyriya Anand, Neelu Sodhi, Cory Hibbs, Sulabha Deshpande

Director: Gauri Shinde

Screenwriter: Gauri Shinde

Producers: R. Balki, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, R.K. Mani, Anil Lulla

English Vinglish Film Review

English Vinglish is not your typical Bollywood film. The film was directed by Gauri Sinde and released in 2011 starring Bollywood’s most beloved, Sridevi.  English Vinglish depicts the journey of an Indian housewife (Sridevi) learning English in a four-week crash course. It’s hard to imagine that Sridevi hasn’t worked in a film for about fifteen years because her performance in English Vinglish is absolutely brilliant. She was able to portray Shashi with such genuine emotions that throughout the film you can’t help but fall in love with Shashi.

From the opening scene we watch Shashi (Sridevi) going about her morning routine and from here it is established that she is the glue that keeps the family functioning. She is shown running around serving breakfast to everyone. From this opening scene we see how under-appreciated she is by her family. Not only does she not have time to enjoy her own cup of coffee, but her family is constantly making fun of her for not being able to speak English. The micro-aggressions reveal how her family considers her to be less intelligent because of the fact that her primarily language of communication is Hindi not English.     

It only gets worse, her daughter, who honestly in my opinion is such an obnoxious character, is embarrassed to have her mother at the parent teacher conference. Even though this might not seem like a big deal, you can see how hurt Shashi is from this constant behavior from her family. Her husband is just as awful as the daughter, in one part of the film he dismisses her small business because its involved with making laddoo (a south Asian dessert).  At one point, her husband says “Shashi was born to make laddoo” as if that was her sole purpose in life. This was one of the many ways in which the family showed just how ungrateful they were.

One day, the family gets a phone call from Shashi’s sister announcing her niece’s wedding. Shashi then leaves for New York to help with the wedding before the rest of the family comes to New York. After being in a situation where she is unable to speak English, Shashi decides to secretly take a four-week course to learn the language. The second half of the film is then about Shashi’s English class where you see multiple other people also in the same boat as her. Everyone shares their back story and it is really heartwarming to see their struggle as well as their progress with learning English.

It is no surprise that at the end of the film, Shashi is able to conquer her fears and make her family feel ashamed for their behavior.  Even though the film has a happy ending, its important to look at the larger message it has. Shinde beautifully articulates the importance of understanding that being able to speak English does not make you superior to others. In the closing scene, when Shashi is on the flight back to India, she asks for The New York Times and midway through her sentence she changes her mind and asks if there is any Indian newspaper available.  Despite being able to now speak English Shashi continues to show her admiration for the Hindi language. She shows how nothing can be more important than appreciating your own culture and language. This message is also relayed in the film poster; you can see how Shashi is wearing a trench coat with a cup of coffee in her hand. Behind her is the Manhattan skyline and if you look closely, you can see that she is wearing a sari under the trench coat. In doing so, Shinde is conveying the message that even though you can learn English and become “modern” at the end of the day you still need to embody your Indian culture.  

Even though this film is about Shashi’s journey in learning English, it is ultimately about her learning to find herself as a Indian woman. Her confidence did not result from learning English but rather from her discovering herself. In one of my favorite scenes of the film, Shashi’s classmate tastes her laddoo and says to her that “you are an artist” to this Shashi surprisingly questions whether she is an artist or not. She replies that in society, “when a man cooks, its an art. When a women cooks, it’s just her duty.”  This line is everything. Shinde critiques Indian society for failing to understand that it is not a woman’s duty to cook or have all responsibilities of the house.  In an interview Shinde even states how English Vinglish was her way to say “‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’ to [her]  mother’” (Indian Express).

English Vinglish is such a feel good film, and I highly recommend watching it! With such a successful debut film, I am excited to see what else Gauri Shinde has to contribute to Indian Cinema in the future.