Genre: Family drama
Year: 1980
Khubsoorat is another beautiful film by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.He is known for making some of the best family films in Bollywood from the 50's right upto to the mid-eighties.This movie came out when he was at the peak of his career.Just the prevous year he had scored a big hit with Gol Maal(which is still popular amongst cinegoers) and Naram Garam was to follow the next year.Khubsoorat,itself was a box office success.
The story is a simple family based affair.The film starts with scenes from the Gupta household which includes Mr.Dwarka Prasad Gupta(Ashok Kumar),his wife Nirmala Gupta(Dina Pathak),their 4 sons(Amarnath,Vijay Kishore,Rakesh Roshan and Ranjit Chaudhary).The eldest son is married and the second one is about to be married.The household is very conservative and is ruled with an iron fist by Nirmala Gupta.She has stiff rules for everything and every family member.The eldest son runs his own business,the second one is a lawyer,the third a doctor and the youngest is in school.
Nirmala is looking for a girl for his second son for marriage.A family friend suggests the elder daughter of Mr Ram Dayal.The younger daughter is Manju(Rekha).
The Gupta family goes to see the girl and are some what shocked to see the easy going behaviour of the Dayal family.They are the complete opposite of the Guptas.But they like the girl and the marriage date is arranged.At this occasion both the hero and heroine also meet for the first time.Both are trying to one-up the other,hence there is tension between them.
The marriage takes place and the story then picks up six months later with the Dayal family still saddened by Anju's departure.Manju is very close to her sister thats why she is more sad than the others.Their servant suggests that they go visit Anju but Mr Dayal refuses to go but agrees to sending Manju their.
Manju arrives at the Gupta's house unannounced.This perturbs Mrs Gupta but she says nothing directly to Manju.But from the moment manju arrives at the house,the lives of all the members of the Gupta household are turned ipside down.She touches the lives of each member of the family and teaches them small things to remain happy in life and spread that happiness amongst each other.The family members of Mrs Gupta are all nice and good people but they are too afraid of Mrs Gupta to fully express their feelings.But Manju changes all that.During her stay she falls in love with Inder(Rakesh Roshan),the third son.
One day while Mrs Gupta is away on a personal visit,Manju arranges a tableau for the entire family on the rooftop of the house.But they are caught doing that when Mrs Gupta returns before her scheduled return.She gets furious at all the family members.The family apologizes but she doesn't listen.She also asks Manju to leave.The next day the family has to leave for another city to attend a family wedding.Only Mr and Mrs Gupta alongwith Manju stayback.Mr Gupta tries to persuade Mrs Gupta to forgive Manju but she is adamant.During their argument Mr Gupta suffers a heart attack and this sends Mrs Gupta into panic.Manju takes control of the situation and immediately calls a doctor.After the doctor leaves,Manju takes care of Mr Gupta.During this time Mrs Gupta also softens up and she really start to like Manju.After a couple of days the family arrives but Manju leaves immediately without saying goodbye to anyone.
But just as she is about to board the train for her hometown,Mrs Gupta alongwith Inder arrive at the station and stop her from going.
The movie cuts to a happy household where Manju is now married to Inder and the movie ends with the entire Gupta family enjoying a nice evening together.
The acting in the movie by all the actors is brilliant.Rekha shines in her lead role but Ashok Kumar and Shashikala(in a rare positive role) are also terrific.The script,dialogue and story are virtually flawless.They are bound to be flawless when the dialogues are written by Gulzar sahab.I guess the only weakness of the movie are its songs.Apart from this weakness their is nothing wrong with the movie.Rekha won the filmfare award for best lead actress for this movie.It was her first win.The movie itself won the filmfare award for best picture of 1980.Khoobsurat is a great family entertainer not to be missed.Watch it if you haven't seen it as yet.You won't be disappointed.
Rating:7.5/10
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