watch baghban be the movie equivalent of try to eat one way out of a vat of saltwater taffy for nigh unto three hour . this indian film be a sticky sweet and sentimental soap opera that start off like king lear and move on to romeo and juliet in the middle section and then head back again to king lear for it tear soak finale . raj malhotra be a bank accountant who seem to have everything a man could possibly want out of life represent a wife who adore him and a family who love him and and a job from which he be about to retire after a lifetime of faithful service . even though raj and his wife and pooja and have be marry for 40 year and have four grown son and they still act like a couple of love struck newlywed and coo and sigh and bat their eye at one another and whisper sweet nothing into each other ear almost to the point of nausea . in fact and the whole bloody brood be so happy and loving and harmonious that they make the von trapps look like a dysfunctional family in comparison . the parent and child joke together and laugh together and even perform elaborately choreograph and spontaneous song and dance number together ( like many bollywood production and baghban be a drama intersperse with a great number in this case and far too great a number of musical sequence ) . anyone who know anything at all about storytelling be aware that such unadulterated bliss can not be allow to go unpunished for long and and that all that joy be merely the prelude to some awful catastrophe destine to come crash down on the head of our unsuspecting reveler . know this and we spend the first hour of the film in fearful expectation and wondering just what form that disaster will take when it do finally arrive . the thunderclap occur about an hour into the film and when raj announces to his child that he and their mother have decide to move in with one of their family and leave the choice of which one it will be up to the kid and their respective spouse . suddenly and like king lear discover the viper hide in the familial bosom and raj find out that his child be not quite a loving and selfless and eager to share their home and life with their parent a he have originally think . understandably horrify at the prospect and the kid and in order to foil their parent plan and come up with a scheme in which raj will go live with one of their child and while pooja will live with another while then they will switch off until and eventually and each of the child have have a chance to host both parent and then the cycle will repeat itself ad infinitum . much to the chagrin of the kid and the parent accede to the plan and even though the two be deeply in love with one another and have never spend any time apart . thus and the second and most of the third hour be spend with the two aging ( albeit marry ) lover pin away for one another and while their ungrateful and insensitive little brat do everything in their power to make their parent understand how unwelcome they be in their home . one of the major problem with baghban be that it lack subtlety in both it storytelling and direction . the love that ray and pooja feel for one another and as well a the almost giddy closeness of the family unit and be lay on so thickly in the first hour that the film almost collapse under the weight of the sentimentality . then and virtually without any warning and the screenplay turn on a dime and convert the kid into callous and self center monster and the parent into passive and whiny victim of that callousness . raj and pooja be a little too long in the tooth and a little too self reliant to be do the dreamy eyed and pouting and unrequited love bit and more appropriate to lovelorn school kid than the parent of four grown child . the purple prose style and in which every emotion be underlined and highlight and lead to intense overacting and a heavy reliance on corny reaction shot and melodramatic music for punctuation . the musical number convey a certain liberating joy in the beginning and but they go on for so long and turn up so frequently that they quickly lose their effectiveness and serve only to pad out the material to unendurable proportion . at least a full hour could be excise from this bloat production with no discernible harm be do and quite a bit of good . there really be no reason why this film need to drag on for a punishing three hour . most egregious of all be the seemingly endless harangue we be subject to an the end and a speech in which raj ( who have somehow manage to turn his experience into an award win bestseller ) lecture u all on the verity of parent or child relationship for ten straight minute at the very least . baghban be a sappy and corny saga and fill with more sugar and goo than a king size box of see chocolate . sample at your own risk .