Life Goes On (2009)

A doctor faces challenges in life as well as from his daughters after the sudden passing of his wife.

Director:

Sangeeta Datta

Writers:

Javed Akhtar (lyrics), Sangeeta Datta

Stars:

Sharmila Tagore, Girish Karnad, Om Puri

Cast

Credited cast:
Sharmila Tagore	...	Manju S. Banerjee
Girish Karnad	...	Dr. Sanjay Banerjee
Om Puri	...	Alok
Soha Ali Khan	...	Dia S. Banerjee
Rez Kempton	...	Imtiaz
Neerja Naik	...	Tuli S. Banerjee
Mukulika Banerjee	...	Lolita
Christopher Hatherall	...	John
Fiona Bera
Misha Crosby	...	Abbas
Meghnad Desai	...	(as Lord Meghnad Desai)
Aria Banerjee-Watts	...	Aria
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sophie Alderson	...	Regan
Shomita Basak	...	Dancer
Yuvraj Basra	...	Lolita's son

Storyline

London-based Dr. Sanjay Banerjee, an ardent Hindu, who is prejudiced towards Muslims, returns to his million-pound home to find his wife, Manju, passed out. He ambulances her to the hospital where she is declared dead due to a massive coronary. Sanjay is consoled by his friend, Alok, who also notifies his three daughters, Lolita, Tuli, and Dia. While preparing for the funeral, reminiscing about this life with Manju, the devastation his family experienced during the time of partition, he meets with each of his daughters, and finds Lolita, who has two children, is having marital problem with her Caucasian husband, John; Career-minded Tuli is in a Lesbian relationship; but nothing will prepare him for the shock when he finds out that aspiring-stage actress, Dia, is not only in love with a Muslim named Imtiaz, but is also pregnant.

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Plot Keywords:

doctor | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Did You Know?

Goofs

There is a scene where the father is sitting in the garden reading a newspaper with with his daughter sat beside him. He is clearly holding the paper upside down.

User Reviews

A relentless stream of stupefyingly simplistic pathos

I was lured into watching this movie by the presence of some of my favorite stars - Girish Karnad and Om Puri. I started regretting my decision within the first 20 minutes. The plot had potential - a grieving family struggles to cope with the sudden death of the mother who was the glue that held the family together. But the script was painfully puerile. It threw in every cliché in the book and then some. There was a Hindu-Muslim angle, a rebellious lesbian daughter, immigrant angst, a cross-cultural marriage on the rocks, and an utterly predictable revelation of infidelity that was thrown in to humanize the otherwise goddess-like persona of the deceased mother and wife. And each cliché was executed in deadly earnest without an iota of subtlety or irony. There were repeated and ponderous musings on life and death. The dead woman kept appearing bathed in radiant hues as she sang and played the sitar, or strolled through flower filled meadows. Until the very end when her transgression was revealed and just to make sure the audience was hammered over the head with the idea - a picture frame with her photo was smashed to pieces. Although I had written off the movie by the half hour mark, I still cringed physically when there was a romantic duet in a meadow to showcase the youthful Hindu-Muslim romance threatened by rigid tradition. No, it was not done in a campy over- the-top Bollywood style, instead it was despairingly wooden and earnest. Bloody awful.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

UK

Language:

English Hindi Bengali

Release Date:

11 March 2011 (UK)

Box Office

Budget:

GBP350,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

SD Films, Storm glass Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color