Life Goes On Review

• 2nd Mar 2011

After having watched Life Goes On all I really have to say is “phew”.  I think if it were one of those films which continued to have an effect on me after leaving the cinema it wouldn’t be too long before I was reduced to a soft-focus, slow motion flashback (which seem to make up about a third of the film at least) after jumping off the top floor of Middlesex General Hospital.  A bit drastic? Well, perhaps I’m on the same wavelength as Sangeeta Datta, the film’s director and screenwriter who throws in one liner gems such as “You’re not my mum – No one understands me!” and “I once read that when people laugh on the inside they’re really lonely and sad. Is that true for you?” just to keep the film verging on hysteria.

The basic plot follows the story of an Anglo-Indian family struggling to come to terms with the loss of their wife and mother and the relationship dramas which naturally ensue from their being forced to spend more than two hours in each other’s company. All sorts of secrets are held under a microscope, from questionable lesbianism to forbidden Islamic boyfriends and their planted seeds. Girish Karnad plays Sanjay, the leader of the pack (although after seeing the film’s marketing don’t feel stupid if you thought Om Puri had the lead role) whose job it is to summon the spirit of his dead wife and have the strength to overcome these family tribulations whilst making sure he’s chosen the right flowers for the funeral.

Aside from the incredibly poor screen play and accompanying melodramatic performances (Puri leads the way in this category, sadly) the story itself has little credibility. It seems just a bit hypocritical for a father who is more than happy for his three daughters to wear skimpy clothes, follow careers in journalism and theatre and marry white men to have a huge hang up over one daughter’s Islamic lover. Maybe that’s the point, but if it is then it’s really not made at all clear and it just seems as though Sanjay is flailing around wildly to establish himself as the leader of the family through clutching at very flimsy and waterlogged straws.

There is some nice commentary on the Partition though Sanjay’s occasional flashbacks, but they only leave me wondering why the rest of the film isn’t made up of such solid material, instead of comprising of dodgy, Eastenders style flashbacks of minor family traumas. I wanted to watch Life Goes On to get an insight into a culture which I have had little experience of growing up. Instead, I came away feeling disappointed and slightly angry that a film which had all the ingredients of a quality drama turned out to be little more than a GCSE standard script with clichéd effects.

Dani Singer