Many men populate Sonali Dev’s 2022 contemporary romantic comedy, The Vibrant Years, but its emotional core lies between three generations of women in the Desai family. There’s the stereotype-defying Bindu, who has just used a mysterious inheritance to buy a fancy Florida condo; her daughter-in-law Alisha, an ambitious and talented broadcast journalist fighting for her turn in the spotlight; and Alisha’s daughter, Cullie, a coding genius whose disastrous romantic life has inspired her to create a new dating app. When an incident at Bindu's new retirement community brings the three women together, Cullie enlists the help of her long-widowed grandmother and divorced mother for the app, sending everyone on dating adventures. Romance ensues, with plenty of drama on the side: Cullie meets a Bollywood filmmaker whose motivations she can’t quite decipher; Alisha’s ex-husband wants her back, forcing them both to consider what their relationship looks like outside a marital context; and Bindu, a bombshell in her new neighborhood, tries to find love on her own terms. As the three women discover more about themselves, and come together over chai and wine to talk it all out, the secrets that each woman has kept carefully hidden soon begin to spill.
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Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com