The Bose Family

Legendary figures of Indian cinema Aparna Sen and Soumitra Chatterjee head up the ensemble cast of this bittersweet tale of family ties and disillusionment. An elderly couple is celebrating their 50th anniversary, and family members gather at their once magnificent, now largely decrepit mansion, where they married a half-century before. As relatives young and old arrive and reminisce about their lives, stories are exchanged about the great family's past. But it does not take long to see that reality is more complicated than family myth. Long-buried family secrets inevitably arise as do secrets that may have been better kept locked away. To face the "fading pride of a nebulous past," family closeness is needed now more than ever. Suman Ghosh directs with a fine eye for the pretensions and wrongdoings of the upper middle class as well as its underlying strength and pain.