Director: Onir

What do you do when you are irresistibly drawn to the woman who's your beloved brother's fiancée? Onir hangs his film on that tantalising peg, and gives us a winsome relationship story.

Struggling scientist Siddharth (Sharman), aided and abetted by enthusiastic dad (Boman) persuades angry mom (Shabana) to fly out to Mauritius because bade bhaiya Harsh (Sanjay) has declared he's getting married. In Mauritius, where he lives now. Mom's gussa with non-returning-to-India sonny boy is vented at his beautiful fiancée Aaliyah (Chitrangada), and Sid's attempts at smoothing things leads him into a rough trough: "ek taraf bhai, aur doosri taraf pyaar", what's to choose?

Sorry Bhai is set in Mauritius so you can feast your eyes on its sparkling blue waters and white sands. It's got Chitrangada on a comeback, looking equally edible. And it has Shabana in one of her best roles, with Boman playing able foil. Plus its twist-in-the-triangle takes it away from the classic Bollywood-style sacrifice, into an interesting new place, and that includes a steamy make-out sequence in the changing room of a designer boutique!

Onir makes up for his terrible last movie, Bas Ek Pal with this, though there are some rough edges here too: the growing attraction between Sid and Aaliyah turns into love alarmingly soon, and the reaction of the bade bhai to the younger brother's trespass seems a little too subdued: he loves the girl, right, so why didn't he just punch his lights out?

But again, that's papered over by the rest of the film, which is designed to charm. Sorry Bhai is both fresh and feel-good.

shubhra.gupta@gmail.com