ENGLISH VINGLISH

Shashi Godbole is an Indian homemaker who makes and sells laddoos as a home-run business. Her husband Satish and daughter Sapna take her for granted, mock her poor  English skills, and generally treat her with disrespect, making Shashi feel negative and insecure. Shashi's older sister Manu, who lives in New York City, invites Shashi's family to her daughter Meera's wedding to Kevin. It is decided that Shashi will go to New York alone five weeks before the wedding to help Manu organize. Using the money she made from selling laddoos, Shashi secretly enrolls in a conversational English class that offers to teach the language in four weeks, showing her resourcefulness at navigating an unfamiliar city alone.

This movie has all my heart. Just saying.

I want to start with the beautiful premise of the film. An Indian mother who wants to learn English to gain respect from her family. I am just going to ignore the whitewashing here, because in today’s world, learning English is a necessity, not a luxury. Everyone feels that way, as this movie shows, not just people in educated sectors of work. The scenes where Shashi struggles to speak English broke me down just as much as it broke Shashi down in the film. I cannot imagine how that feels like, to be linguistically judged. There were multiple times where that happen, and the pain was captured the same way each time. Also, another painful part is the family judgement. Shashi does a lot of backlash from her own family for her inability to speak good English (her daughter is the worst, so a good actor). Being a mother and a respectable one at that, she never retaliated against them any shape or manner. In fact, she took English lessons to show her worth is measured more than merely language capability. 

Next, the acting. My entire childhood revolves around queens like Sridevi, and this is one of her best works for me. We will always remember her.

She was spectacular in this not only because of how believable it was, but also the body language. Sridevi does not play naïve characters very often, and she nailed this one. Shashi’s character is gentle yet fierce within and that was captured so well, that I cannot imagine anyone else suited for this role. But it was not just here, her condescending family acted incredibly well too, seeing as to how I wanted to impale all of them through my screen, so yes they deserve some credit. Also, her English class students were an amazing set of actors as well. I enjoyed their clips immensely, not just the diversity, but also the love for each other came through. Just like how if you relate deeply to someone’s problems, you form a special connection with them, this class reminded me of that premise too. All of them had problems speaking English and they overcame their fears together. Because at the end of the day, it is not if you can speak the language well, it is if you have eliminated the fear of not being able to do so.

I am including this clip of the first English class she attended.

 Moving on, the French guy. Dedicating a paragraph to him as I was smitten when I was merely 10 years old. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, a French guy at the English class falls for Shashi. Since she is already married to the condescending creep and has a responsibility toward her family and husband as a mother and wife, ignores this altogether. Not going to lie, that did upset me a little. In my view, your spouse should hold you in high regard, and vice versa, No one is above anyone in todays society, especially among you and your couple. If either one breaks this rule, then it is not worth to remain in a marriage. But that was my mindset at 10. Now, I know why Shashi did what she did. If all marriages revolve around the rule that spouses should be perfect in the sense that no misunderstandings should happen to do with superiority, then no one would be married today, for all marriages are a bumpy road up a hill. It is if you are willing to fight and fix the way the marriage is headed that solves marital problems, not that they should not exist. Also, marriage is considered very sacred to Indian culture. Breaking any vows or divorces are not common because of the purity a marriage contains. Thus, all effort should be put to mending it, not finding a way out of it. If you break something that can be fixed, fix it first before thinking of getting a new one. 

I am also going to complement the scriptwriters for this one, because of the emotional punches and tear dropping moments it created. Thank you for those.

All in all, this is a movie to watch to feel happy and grateful that we have come this far, as an individual, a family, and humanity overall.

Cast: Sridevi, Adil Hussain, Mehdi Nebbou, Navika Kotia, Shivansh Kotia, Priya Anand, Sujata Kumar, Cory Hibbs, Ruph Aguilai, Sumeet Vyas, Rageev Ravindranathan, Damian Thompson, Maria Romano, Neelu Sodhi, Ross Nathan, Maria Pendolino, Sulabha Deshpande, Ashvin Mathew,

Director: Gauri Shinde

Year relased: 2012

Link to watch full movie with english subtitles: 

English Vinglish (2012) Full Movie Online Free Streaming (topeuropix.site)