Cast: Manoj Pahwa, Seema Pahwa, Gulshan Devaiah, Girija Oak Godbole, Kaveri Seth & others
Creator: Palak Bhambri
Director: Sachin Pathak
Streaming On: YouTube
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 8 episodes of 40 minutes each
Last week, we watched a web series depicting an Indian family in Thode Door Thode Paas, which was far from reality. I loved it, but then I was dragged out of that La La Land this week with Pankaj Tripathi’s web series Perfect Family. The actor has turned into a producer with this family drama, which breaks myths about families being together and happy, one therapy session at a time!
Perfect Family Review: What’s It About:
The web series sets its premise straight – there is an Indian family, Karkaria, Manoj Pahwa, and Seema Pahwa play the heads, the father and the mother. Girija Oak Godbole and Gulshan Devaiah play the son and the bahu of the family who want to live separately, along with their two kids. Kaveri Seth plays the separated daughter of the family!
Now, talking about Indian families, let’s just admit it, every Indian family, especially the ones obsessed with ‘log kya kahenge’, is always one crisis away from a major showdown among its family members.
Perfect Family Review: What Works:
The Perfect Family drops us right into a sweet-sour bickering world of the Karkaria family. Forget the grand sets and a filmy Barjatya or Karan Johar family and the sweeping romances and laughing members, this series is raw, real, and frankly, a bit uncomfortable, and this is precisely why this show works for me personally. It is very close to the truth.
The web series is not a laughter riot or an entertaining outing with comic punches. Honestly, this is an eight-episode therapy session that all of us should attend and all of us desperately need in this fast-paced world. The show starts immediately with its premise when the granddaughter, Daani, gets a panic attack in her school after recalling the fights in her home. The entire Karkaria family, which maintains the image of a happy-go-lucky Punjabi family, is forced to visit a counselor on the insistence of the granddaughter’s school!
What follows next is not a dramatic expose, but a very slow and heartbreaking process of peeling back layers and secrets of a family and why they do not get along with each other due to old wounds and differences that haunt them to date.
Perfect Family Review: Star Performance:
Manoj and Seema Pahwa, the real-life couple, bring a very raw and real chemistry on screen as the senior Karkarias. Their veiled issues as the mithai-shop owner and his dutiful wife are effortless. Manoj Pahwa is brilliant as the ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ father who fears falling down. Seema Pahwa, meanwhile, breaks your heart as the mother whose entire identity is tied up in her family, slowly realising she might deserve an ice cream at India Gate just for herself. She owns the emotional core!
Gulshan Devaiah & Girija Oak Godbole steal the show as the junior Karkaria couple. If the Pahwas lay the foundation of marital issues, Gulshan and Girija are the crumbling walls that elaborate these issues. Their portrayal of a couple desperately trying to reconcile their carefree college romance while dealing with their suffocating marital reality is brilliant.
The anchor of this show is Neha Dhupia, who deserves applause for making therapists and counsellors seem so real and essential in life. I hope that, looking at her, people shed the inhibitions they have about therapists and reach out to one as soon as they feel they need counselling!
Perfect Family Review: What Doesn’t Work:
With every episode and every therapy session, she unlocks the family’s deep-rooted resentment and trauma. However, at times it gets a bit too uncomfortable, and you need a moment to breathe. The backstories sometimes make the plate too full. Moreover, the show is an honest commitment, and it does not have a wow moment; it is there for your consumption and not to entertain much!
Perfect Family Review: Last Words:
The web series is a winner for me simply for introducing the concept of counselling without offering any lessons. Not once does it get preachy about families falling apart and the need for counsellors to bring them back together. Neha Dhupia acts as the catalyst for this show.
The Perfect Family is an honest report card on the modern Indian household. It tells you that it is okay not to be perfect, it is alright if you need help, and it is okay if the problems remain messy despite seeking help. The cast brilliantly holds the show and keeps it too real. To be honest, the show is urgently needed, and it requires your attention. This web series might help you take that one step towards collective healing.
3.5 stars.
For more reviews of web shows, stay tuned to Koimoi.
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