‘Tighee’ Movie Review: Sonalee Kulkarni, Bharti Achrekar Star in a Tale of Broken Homes and Tender Wounds

Sometimes, we find a movie at the right time. It’s what the doctor ordered: relatable, complex, sensitive, uncanny. It’s almost as if the movie were made just for us: to address the uncomfortable thoughts in our head that life cannot. We feel seen, encouraged even. But sometimes, if we’re lucky enough, it’s the movie that finds us. Jeejivisha Kale’s Tighee (“the three of us”) has the personality of a gentle stranger you didn’t know you needed to meet — until halfway through the conversation. It revolves around two estranged sisters who reunite in service of their dying mother in Pune. The themes it poses range from the gendered resentments of caregiving, marital tension and motherhood to sexual abuse, workspace harrassment and hospice living. But there’s a sense that, despite the specificity of its social fabric, it refuses to alienate the average viewer. Its humanity is inclusive; its chaos is next-door. Most of us have more in common with such stories than we’d like to believe.

At a narrative level, the familial conflicts of Tighee are familiar. It’s obvious that the crisis will soften the strain between the two sisters, Swati (Neha Pendse) and Sarika (Sonalee Kulkarni), as they come to terms with each other’s struggles. Swati will recognise younger sibling Sarika’s sacrifices and lost years as the primary caregiver — the relationships she didn’t pursue; the dream career that evaded her, the reduced existence and romantic oblivion she’s settled for; the anticipatory grief that’s aged her. And Sarika will notice that Swati’s life in Mumbai hasn’t been as escapist and simple as she imagined — a deadbeat husband; a loan to repay to a predatory boss; a haunted past; the crippling guilt of being a daughter in a three-year-long rift with her mother. It’s also obvious that the incomplete memories of the childhood home and the proximity of a difficult parent will diminish the distance between the two women; society expects them to absorb the pressure of being daughters, partners, strivers and workers like they’re individual roles and not identities. The resolution will be Piku-like: total, neat, bittersweet, unexpectedly lyrical. That’s how it usually goes.

We may know the endgame, but such films thrive on the little complications and deep-wired relationship dynamics in a culture that often reframes love as a language of obligation and womanhood as a grammar of caregiving. Tighee may look like it’s not exploring unchartered territory, but it shows a knack of excavating the silence of multiple (family) rooms without reducing the experience to commentary tropes and preachy lessons. It’s no small deal for a Marathi-language drama that trades its inherent stageyness for lived-in theatricality. Both Sonalee Kulkarni and Neha Pendse nail the brief of playing characters who are jostling to be the protagonist of one story. Sarika behaves like she’s entitled to her main-character energy; she’s probably earned it by giving up the prime for an ailing mother. It may have started out as a repayment of ‘debt,’ given that the older woman single-handedly brought up two girls after the sudden death of her husband. But it’s clear that, with the arrival of Swati, Sarika is fighting to preserve the ownership of her trauma; she doesn’t want her sister to get equal credit — or affection — for not sharing the responsibilities. You can detect the toll of disgruntlement on her face and tired body. Swati understands the hostility, but she’s trapped in her own psychological drama. An incident on her wedding day nearly a decade ago has her questioning the sanctity of their dysfunctional home. She feels like the third wheel in her personal life, so she’s scrambling to reclaim some agency as a sibling and daughter. Kulkarni and Pendse make it look like two separate coming-of-age sagas that are forced to confront the plurality of their journeys; they’re competing to inhabit the same space in the hope that they’ll learn to split the emotional rent again.

The thing about Tighee is that, at some level, it reiterates a few conservative ideas about generational conflict, stability and social reverence. The mother, Hemlata, turns out to be the ‘bigger’ person and real protagonist in many ways: selfless, forward-thinking, primal and protective. She is not the most pleasant lady, but it’s supposed to be part of the wound she bore for her kids. I’m not a fan of Indian films that justify toxic parenting and gaslighting as a school-of-hard-knocks condition. It’s in our blood to see our mothers and fathers as investors who are owed comfort and entitlement for the value(s) they enforce on us. The screenplay leans towards the she-did-it-for-our-own-good line of thinking. It’s also in our blood to celebrate adults who settle for duty and belonging over ambition; Sarika’s local startup co-founder is a friend and nice guy, a sign that her American dream may not be worth all the heartache. Swati’s marriage, too, is not offered the moral ambiguity it initially promises.

Under most circumstances, the Baghban-lite tone might have derailed the film. But two things work in its favour. One, Bharti Achrekar’s intuitive performance; she plays Hemlata as a widow who believes she deserves unconditional trust. Even if the writing gives Hemlata a redemptive halo over her head, the veteran actor allows the character’s imperfections to define her mentality. Courage was something she had to learn, which is why even her compassion towards her daughter — she is sick of being a burden on Sarika — is loaded with contradictions. She wants to leave on her own terms, regardless of what they feel, because she still thinks she knows what’s best for them. Secondly, Tighee does not operate from a space of glorification or undue sympathy for the old guard. If anything, it humanises Hemlata by reminding her daughters — and by extension, a majority of the audience — that they’ve spent too long treating their mother as a failing body to notice her beating heart.

Both Swati and Sarika become surprised by the stories they told themselves in order to continue seeing Hemlata as a flawed mother. The stress of watching a parent disappear and weaken over time, and the brutal indignities of caregiving, tends to prevent us from viewing them as people who may have once been capable of strength and goodness. The accumulated grudges often compromises our ability to see a spine bent by the pressure of erasing their own needs and desires. That’s not to say they can’t do any wrong. That’s not to say they know what they’re doing either. The point of a warm and attentive film like Tighee is that the love that limits is inextricable from the love that liberates. After all, it’s not about finding ourselves at the right time. It’s about finding the right to be ourselves.