The feelings this dream conjures up are the sort we’d like clicked, framed and mounted on the walls of the house. Glowing pictures of that leisurely breakfast around an overflowing dining table, that quiet, peaceful coffee-and-book evening, that crazy lunch when everyone came over, that family celebration which won’t end. Director Shakun Batra, who has written Kapoor & Sons’ screenplay and dialogue with Ayesha Devitre Dhillon, takes us into exactly such a dream home in Coonoor — the house of daddy Harsh (Rajat Kapoor), mummy Sunita (Ratna Pathak Shah), soon-to-be-98 Dadaji (Rishi Kapoor), dog Geshu, and their two grown-up sons “settled” abroad. But he takes us there to shatter all illusions about the perfect family. That thing doesn’t exist. Dysfunction has been a great Indian family tradition since the time of Ramayan and Mahabharat. Only it’s hardly ever called out. We have too many weddings to plan, too many traditions to follow, too many functions to attend, too many boxes to tick, too many lies to live. The few times that it has been, straight-faced and without hesitation, have remained embedded in our psyche. Monsoon Wedding, Highway, even Piku, Vicky Donor, Wake Up Sid, and some bits in that phoney Dil Dhadakne Do. And now comes Kapoor & Sons (Since 1921). It’s a story set in a house that’s teetering on the brink — seething with anger and resentment, yet busy with the daily chores of life, family meals, recipes, hospital visits. Like all dysfunctional families, this one too is always just one conversation away from reconciliation, closure and regaining balance, and always just one act, one move away from unravelling, tipping over and disintegrating into complete chaos. Here happiness lies locked in old, painful photo albums. From the first scene itself, where around the dining table Sunita taunts Harsh about money, and he taunts her about everything, including her taunting, while Dadaji pretends to die, it’s clear that we are going to bask in the gory glory of a dysfunctional family