Gulmohar is a beautiful film. An emotional family drama with some lovely performances and dialogues. It's truly a delight to watch Manoj Bajpayee, Sharmila Tagore and Amol Palekar together in one film.

Bajpayee keeps reminding us that he is one of the best we have. Such a moving performance. Outstanding! It was a pleasure watching Sharmila on screen after a long time and she is excellent. In fact she along with Bajpayee pretty much stole the scene. It is a delight to watch Amol Palekar even while playing a grey role in this one. We have hardly seen Simran Bagga in Hindi cinema and she is so good. All the other actors including Suraj Sharma are fine too.

Overall this one is a must watch especially if you crave quality family dramas. Rajiv Chittella makes an assured debut as a director.

Gulmohar focuses on dysfunctional family's last four days in their home before they shirt permanently to their new homes and lives respectively. Hidden truth, insecurities make their way out as the family members try hard to keep it together. It indeed is a touching concept to dwell into a family's attachment to the house they grew up in. Gulmohar has several endearing characters and their internal conflicts highly relatable.

The short coming is how much it relies on dialogues to convey the emotions, to an extent they tend to touch the surface of several conflicts. It is indeed the Veteran actors who effortlessly get into the skin of these characters and elevate each of these scenes. One wishes the conflict point within the family with respect to the written will was much stronger, especially the final conversation between Sharmila Tagore and Amol Palekar.

I am going with the extra rating solely for the reveal in the end about Pondicherry. Otherwise I definitely wished the conversation between Sharmila Tagore and her grand daughter to be more real. But the attempt to make the flashback more emotional, it limits itself in handling the sensitive moment. The screenplay has it's flaws but the lovable characters turn this into a decent watch.

This film's premise reminded me of Monsoon wedding right from the first frame. But what prevented it from reaching the level of Monsoon wedding is the monotonous narrative.

Every character is so serious and irritated. It felt that as if everyone in this world is constipated.

The track of the maid and the watchman here reminded me of the track of the marriage organiser and the maid in Monsoon wedding. There that track became the highlight of the film and established the actors playing that characters.

It is only the pleasure of watching some amazing actors, great cinematography etc. That kept me watching.

An opportunity to make a great film got wasted.