Super Nani

About the film

Super Nani (transl. Super grannie) is an Indian comedy drama directed and produced by Indra Kumar, starring Rekha, Sharman Joshi, Randhir Kapoor, Anupam Kher and Rajesh Kumar. The film is based on the Gujarati play, Baa Ae Maari Boundary by Imtiaz Patel. The music is composed by Harshit Saxena and Sanjeev–Darshan.

The film was released on 31 October 2014 and marked Randhir Kapoor's final screen appearance.

Plot

The film begins with a guy called Manorath “Mann” Mehra video interviewing some people for a job. He gives them the job description and they ask how much the salary is. He replies saying nothing which leaves them all shocked. They question him and he says there are many people who do this job for nothing in this world, our mothers. They all praise their mothers and agree that mothers are the ones who do this job and that too for free.

He goes home to a proud mother who begins telling him about her mother Bharti who does nothing but work and look after the family. The story moves on to Mumbai where Bharti is singing and living a happy life with her family. Turns out that she is just dreaming and that her family treat her like a maid, they give her no importance and mock her ways. The maid is the only one in the house who appreciates and sees what this mother does. She prays to god asking him to do right by her as she always thinks good for her family.

Mann reaches Mumbai and is on the streets taking part in a celebration. He arrives at his grandmothers. He wears a mask and knocks on the door, the maid opens the door and he chases her. Bharti comes out and immediately remembers his childhood when he would chase the maid wearing a similar mask. He goes to the temple with her and sees a girl dancing called Riya, who he befriends. Soon he sees the way the rest of the family treat her and decides to bring a change. He takes the help of Riya and gets Bharti dressed up in many different ways and clicks pictures of each pose. He shows these photos to the family who are shocked and angry. They ask him to leave and return to America and scold Bharti.

Soundtrack

The music was composed by Harshit Saxena and Sanjeev–Darshan and released by Zee Music Company. All lyrics were penned by Sameer.

Reception

Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times gave the film 1 out of 5, calling the film "painfully dated." She further wrote that "under the wafer-thin garb of women empowerment, Super Nani is offensively regressive." Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in gave a negative review, calling the film a "regressive eighties-style morality lesson emanate." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 1 out 5, writing, "How regressive can you get? Are these ‘traditional’ values that we need to topline? It is supremely ironical that a film making fun of ‘saas-bahu’ serials (yes, it tries) shoves exactly those sentiments down our throat. And even more so when you call your leading lady Bharati. We can do without this creaky idea of Mrs India, thank you."

Key details