Brothers and Sisters Review: A Safe, Light, Family-Friendly Sitcom

BOTTOM LINE
A Safe, Light, Family-Friendly Sitcom

PLATFORM
JioHotstar

RUNTIME

What Is the Show About?

Shanmuga Sundaram, the owner of a sari showroom, and his wife are parents to four children – three daughters and a son – leading contrasting lives. The eldest daughter, Jayshree, is a lawyer harbouring a dark secret after her boyfriend vanishes. A friend, Priyan, saves her and guides her back home. Meanwhile, an HR professional, Siddharth, confides in his mother about his feelings for a colleague, Harini (Jayshree’s sister).

Performances

Bose Venkat plays the typical orthodox, patriarchal figure at home, a businessman who does the earning and leaves the domestic duties to his wife. The role asks him to be more easy-going and relaxed with his body language, and he appears at ease. Popular TV personality Gayathri Shastry is apt in a role she’s played too often, an average home-maker, feeding meals to the family and cribbing about the kids.

Kishore, Shravnitha, Luthuf, and Nikhila Shankar appear in diverse roles as the siblings. In the early episodes, Nikhila has the upper hand in terms of performance. Raj Ayyappa displays a knack for humour, while Siddharth, Riyan, Hamar, and Ramesh Aravind are alright in supporting roles. Most of the cast do their bit to adhere to the feel-good template and pass muster.

Analysis

Jio Hotstar has been making credible, consistent efforts at backing Tamil shows across multiple genres, addressing a wide variety of themes, and widening its viewer base with every attempt. Resort, Uppu Puli Karam, Office, Heart Beat, and LBW may not have exactly turned the OTT space topsy-turvy, but they indicate a dedicated strategy to meet expectations from an alternative storytelling medium.

The first set of episodes of Brothers and Sisters, another of their Tamil shows, which they plan to release across multiple weeks, directed by Chidambaram Manivannan, is out on the platform. One senses that it is a sit-com from a place of nostalgia, revisiting the kind of Tamil family soaps popular in the 90s and the 2000s and giving it a modern-day, contemporary spin. It speaks in a cinematic language true to today, even though the writing isn’t gold-standard.

Brothers and Sisters deals with domestic conflicts in a family, charting the individual journeys of the characters and their struggles while keeping the treatment light and easy to digest. Harini, Jaggu, Jayshree, and the youngest sibling are the four children of a higher-middle-class, orthodox Tamil family. The father, Shanmuga Sundaram, runs a clothing showroom, while his wife holds the house together.

Jayshree, the lawyer, takes a drastic step when her boyfriend goes missing from her Bengaluru home. Harini is trying hard to resist the advances of a male HR at work. Meanwhile, Jaggu, while trying to carve out his identity as a DJ, isn’t taken seriously at home, and his sister Meera makes rapid strides in cricket. Despite these highs and lows in their lives, the family remains a tight-knit, secure unit.

The early episodes are only meant to introduce the key characters and the show’s trajectory, and it sticks to its purpose firmly. While Jayshree’s breakup trauma is sensitively handled, you barely get a few snapshots of the other characters. The subplot of the cricket-enthusiast Meera and her male friend suggests a case of a talented sportswoman who’s gaslit by a partly insecure underachiever.

Jaggu’s DJ life is the usual stuff – a youngster obsessed with his headsets, sporting an afro-cut and his unusual encounters at parties, and struggling for acceptance at home. Harini and her HR Siddharth’s blow-hot, blow-cold workplace romance is a cliche, where the latter desperately makes moves to draw the girl towards him. In all cases, the show focuses enough on the parents too, ensuring a few light-hearted moments.

On a hot, summer day with overwhelming viewing options, Brothers and Sisters is a safe, convenient choice, tailored for family-friendly viewing. The story is minimal, the atmosphere is light, it deals with relatable characters in a few stock situations and has its target audience entertained without trying too hard.

Music and Other Departments?

Saran Raghavan’s music is breezy and fluid, avoiding much exaggeration and not letting the score impose on a scene. Manikandan Ramamoorthy’s cinematography is lively and impactful, avoiding any overt experiments, sticking to basics, and delivering the needful.

The staging and execution capture the essence of the written material, a nostalgic extension to your 90s and 2000s sitcom. The writing is strictly basic, but given the light, slice-of-life treatment and the scores of characters it comprises, the limitations don’t appear glaring.

Highlights?

Nostalgic, light-hearted

Neat execution

Relatable situations, clean humour

Drawbacks?

Sticks to a standard template

Several stock situations

Could’ve been more realistic despite the nostalgia

Did I Enjoy It?

Generally works because it has limited aims and fulfils them

Will You Recommend It?

If you crave a not-so-bad upgrade to good-ol’ sit-coms of the 90s and early 2000s

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