Biwi No. 1 (1999)

I grew up with this movie, and even back then I was aware of how weirdly patriarchal and regressive it was. From Salman calling both his wife and his mistress (Karisma Kapoor and Sushmita Sen, respectively) "mera baccha/mera beta" (the daddy issues, I tell you) to all the preachiness about what an "ideal" wife/woman should be like to the absolute absurdity of it all, this is probably the most representative of all David Dhawan movies, especially from that era. And as much as I hate to say it, it's also probably the most enjoyable of the lot. I finished this movie in one sitting and rarely felt bored or irritated. So yes, this is THE David Dhawan movie you should be watching, if you want to get an idea of what his brand of cinema was all about.

I wish they had given Tabu more to do here. She was super hilarious, and it's a shame that we didn't get to see more of Lovely. I am also mad because I found out that this was a remake of a Tamil film called Sathi Leelavathi (1995), whose plot I read on Wikipedia, and honestly? THAT PLOT SOUNDS SO MUCH BETTER AND LESS REGRESSIVE THAN WHATEVER DAVID DHAWAN DID WITH IT. Had they stuck to the original, it would have made a lot of sense and also added complexity to an otherwise stupid old story about a selfish asshole MAN who wants his cake and wants to eat it too. 

In conclusion, Bhai cannot act. There's not a shadow of doubt left in my mind regarding that. And I had somehow forgotten about Karisma's modelling shots in the movie, which pretty much explains why I watched it multiple times as a kid. Whatta wow.

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