At one point in Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar (2023), a character asks Tinni (Shraddha Kapoor) that her partner is handsome, successful, well natured, and from a good family. Then what is her problem with him? She opens her mouth to answer but the character promptly holds his hand to her mouth, smiles, and literally shuts her up.
This may be because the audience cannot yet know exactly why Tinni is so desperate to dissolve her relationship with Rohan (Ranbir Kapoor), that too through a professional break-up consultant.
But in Luv Ranjan’s cinematic universe, this is also because women aren’t allowed the outbursts and monologues that his men are now famous for.
She opens her mouth to answer but the character promptly holds his hand to her mouth, smiles, and literally shuts her up.
The answer, of course, is family: the newest addition to the triangle of love and friendship in his films.
Rohan’s seemingly progressive, endearing family suffocates Tinni with their expectations and decisions for her life. Rohan is only too happy to comply.
Marrying someone, for him, is marrying their family as well.
But Tinni disagrees. She is the first female Luv Ranjan lead to have a mind of her own. Her experience of her mother compromising in a joint family hasn’t been empowering or liberating like Rohan’s.
But this is not given even half the serious attention that Rohan, his family, and their conservative values are. They hijack the film, its love story, the relationship between the lovers, and even hijack its climax, with an absurd airport proposal involving the entire family.
Marrying someone, for him, is marrying their family as well.
Although there’s a momentary acknowledgment of their mistakes here in disregarding Tinni’s boundaries, it is quickly forgotten as they beg her to join their family. Tinni accepts, swept away by Ranjan’s Hum Saath Saath Hain logic, and all her previous concerns magically disappear.
The best way to resolve conflict becomes to forget that there was any in the first place.
The film sweeps us off into a musical montage of a new life for her. She embraces Rohan’s family as her own, while her professional ambitions, reluctance to have children, and autonomy take a backseat.
…her professional ambitions, reluctance to have children, and autonomy take a backseat.
Their seemingly progressive acceptance of her lifestyle conveniently alleviates all of Tinni’s previous worries about their controlling and toxic nature.
To slightly misquote Karan Johar:
It’s all about loving your (husband’s) family.
