Rahul is a best-selling author, while Arjun is a floater with his own writing aspirations. Their parents Harsh (Rajat Kapoor) and Sunita (Ratna Pathak Shah) are dealing with Harsh’s business woes. The Kapoor sons Rahul (Fawad Khan) and Arjun (Sidharth Malhotra) are summoned by their soon-to-be-90 grandfather (Rishi Kapoor) for a family reunion at their home in Coonoor. In Kapoor & Sons, family secrets that might have driven some people to violence or life-long therapy are delivered by gorgeous leads in picture-perfect settings. The songs remain, but they are often relegated to the background. The arguments and quarrels are delivered in tones associated with normal humans rather than creatures of the opera. Their characters are more ruffled and layered and therefore more credible than their pancake-wearing predecessors. All these movies explore the anxieties, complications and tensions that govern romance and family through a combination of realism and wish fulfillment. These include movies as diverse as Batra’s debut Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Hasee Toh Phasee, Piku, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Queen and Dil Dhadakne Do. Shakun Batra’s beautifully performed drama, about a family lurching from one crisis to the next, is part of a recent development towards ‘Happy endings with reservations’ in popular Hindi cinema.

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Kapoor and sons 2016