Rahul Desai
The good news is that the geographical and gender dynamics of Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo don’t go horribly wrong. At worst, the result is middling.
But it’s also true that the premise is an eye-catching reversal of the regressive saas-bahu legacy. It’s not just that feminine friction is a weakness here, or that the close-knit ladies are leading a field replete with fragile masculinity.
The bad news, though, is that Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo goes wrong in older and more primal ways. Simply put, the storytelling is off. As is evident from his career so far, Adajania is more of a mood-maker than a narrative-builder – or, in other words, more concept than plot.
The staging is disjointed, a recurring issue in modern Hindi thrillers. It’s like the makers treat the speakers and doers in isolation, without worrying about the universe or background they occupy.
The familial tension is supposed to define the rest of the series, except there’s too much going on for the viewer to even remember Savitri’s little game.
The action set pieces aren’t convincing either. A shootout towards the end lacks creativity, with most of the gun-toting people literally firing at each other from point-blank range, as if they were trapped in an amateur paintball challenge.
In terms of acting, it goes without saying that Dimple Kapadia owns the aura of a ruthless matriarch. She can do more with her eyes and stillness than most actors can with an entire body of dialogue.
Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo scrapes through that exam but fumbles the basics – the cinematic equivalent of a tennis player upsetting top-ranked legends in the first two rounds only to be defeated by a journeyman in the third.