Response to English Vinglish

            The first film by director Gauri Shinde, English Vinglish is a heartwarming movie that broaches themes of alienation, language, respect, and empowerment. In the film, Shashi runs her own laddoo business in India, but she is constantly being disrespected by both her husband and daughter. She settles into insecurity, but her mindset is jolted upon traveling to New York to stay with her sister for her niece’s wedding. Only then, in this new environment, is she able to learn more about herself and what she is capable of. Throughout the film, we come to see how her mental journey of empowerment and self-discovery was mirrored by her physical journey to the city.

Her flight foreshadowed and paralleled elements of her mental transformation. Miles above ground, she literally is afforded a new visual point of view, which she marvels at outside the window. Likewise, she is also shown a new point of view by Amitabh Bachchan’s unnamed character, who shows her how to assert herself both explicitly and by example. We see her marvel at his character and personality with the same facial expressions that she had when looking out the window of her plane. Additionally, the flight itself was a sensory transition between India and the Western world. In the background, the instrumental music is clearly Indian, but the airline itself is not, as we can note from the flight attendant and the almost nonexistent selection of on-board Hindi entertainment.

On her flight, she has the pleasure of sitting next to Bachchan’s character. During the flight, he is clearly at ease, unabashedly and unapologetically himself, a state we see Shashi move towards by the end of the movie. On repeated occasions, he tells her to “confidently, definitely, surely, absolutely shamelessly” pursue what she wants, acknowledging when she was thirsty or had trouble with her headphones. Previously, we had seen her forgoing her own wishes to serve her family. In an opening frame, we see her awake early, juxtaposed against only the feet of her husband Satish, indicating an imbalance in their relationship. She is soon interrupted by various family members asking her to bring them food, most notably Satish. However, by the end of the film, though her plan is foiled, we see her willing to forego some wedding preparations in order to pursue the certification for herself. Her plan is only scrapped because she was remaking the ladoos that symbolized her skills and pride. It appears by the end, she has internalized this message of caring for herself and her wants.

            Most notably on the flight, Bachchan animatedly begins to reenact an English movie in Hindi for Shashi. With great gusto, he unabashedly makes his presence known, ignoring the man who tried to silence him. At the end of the movie, we see Shashi doing the same. She takes the opportunity to speak at Meera’s wedding, even after being silenced by her embarrassed husband. She speaks confidently for a prolonged time, not shying away from strong statements about marriage and family.

            Finally, Shashi was introduced to the idea that she shouldn’t be scared of anyone else, since she herself was a force to be reckoned with. Bachchan displays this by telling the American airport desk worker that he has come to help jumpstart America’s economy, firmly asserting his own sense of his own value, while leaving the haughty American flabbergasted. Similarly, we see Shashi stand up to her husband at the end of the film and place herself in a position of power. With the same tone he orders her around in, he asks her what she is doing since the wedding is about to start. Then, she introduces him to her classmates, and we see him looking confused and out of the loop, something that previously occurred with the roles flipped.

            Throughout the movie, much of Shashi’s personal development is able to occur because the distance from her family allows her to distance herself from their demeaning comments and differently expand her horizons. Her flight, the physical manifestation of this change in point of view, serves to foreshadow the changes in how she saw herself, and what she observes on her journey across the Atlantic well matches her personal journey that follows.