Review: We Are Family *Spoilers*

We Are Family
Stars: Kajol, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal
Directed by: Siddharth Malhotra
Released: 2010

We Are Family is a remake of the western/Hollywood film Step Mom starring Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts. This is the first time I've seen a western film remade in Bollywood and actually thought that the Hollywood version was better. This isn't really my type of film, as I tend to stay away from those extra sappy films, but I was on a Kajol kick and was interested in seeing Kareena Kapoor.

So we have Maya (Devgan), a divorced mother of three spoiled brats named Aleya, Ankush and Anjali. Although these three kids live with their mother most of the time, they also visit their father, Aman (Rampal), often. However, what used to be a fun trip to daddy's house soon became a nightmare when Aman begins dating Shreya (Kapoor). Shreya makes a terrible first impression when she falls - literally - into Anjali's cake and the kids hate her right from the start. Maya shares their feelings and is not at all crazy about having her children around this stranger. That is, until she finds out that she has terminal cervical cancer. After which she begins on a quest to get her children to like Shreya, and to get Shreya ready for the motherhood she never thought she'd be asking for.

This movie was... well, terrible. The only thing that saved it for me was the acting. As my friend Ally says, Kajol is one of those actresses that can't be bad - this was no exception. But the person who really shone through for me was Kareena. I'd hear some good things and some... not so good things about her and was hesitant to see how she acted, but I was very pleasantly surprised. She was absolutely fantastic. Arjun really just annoyed me, as he usually does - I really can't stand him or his acting. However, the fabulous acting on the two heroine's parts couldn't save the movie. The lines were terrible and cliche (and not in the way I like..) and the music was terribly misplaced. Don't EVEN get me started on the Jail House Rock number they did, which wasn't too bad until Arjun came in and danced with the girls. It was all a colossal joke to me, and in the end I was surprised Maya wasn't ready to die in order to get away from her incredibly annoying and spoiled children.

Rating: 4/10