Rohena Gera’s SIR, starring Tillotama Shome and Vivek Gomber, which garnered huge critical acclaim on its limited theatrical release on November 13th 2020, is finally going to stream on a major OTT platform.

The independent film about a seething romance between a live-in housemaid in Mumbai and her upper-class employer has been picked up by Netflix – and will stream from January 9th 2021 on the platform.

Is Love Enough? SIR appeared in most critics’ year-ender lists of best films and performances of 2020. Shome’s performance was hailed as one of the finest of the year. But because of the pandemic, and because SIR was one of the first Hindi films to play theatrically after the nationwide lockdown, not many viewers felt comfortable enough to enter halls to watch the festival favourite. The film ran for a couple of weeks to near-empty cinema halls.

SIR initially made a splash in 2018, where it premiered at the Cannes Critics Week, earning favourable reviews and setting the stage for an India release. But for reasons not known, it has taken over two years for the film to find its way to our nearest small screens – and just in time too, with almost every other film enthusiast on the internet demanding to know when they can have access to a film that only critics did (through private screeners).

All’s well that ends well. Better late than never and all that.

Catch SIR on Netflix, and at long last, see what all the fuss is about. And then maybe re-read all those rave reviews with context.

(Also listen to our podcast about the film here)