Tehzeeb is about the strained relationship between a mother and her daughter. It is about Rukhsana Jamal (Shabana Azmi), a famous and ambitious singer, and her daughter Tehzeeb (Urmila Matondkar).

Salim (Arjun Rampal), Tehzeeb's husband and the narrator of the film, takes you through Tehzeeb as a child, her relationship with her parents and then as an adult and her relationship with her writer husband and mentally challenged sister. Happy-go-lucky novelist Salim, with a song or couplet for every situation, brings light moments in the film that is otherwise marked with thick tension.

Tehzeeb (Urmila Matondkar) dislikes her mother Rukhsana (Shabana Azmi), a popular and ambitious singer. This is due to the fact that she suspects her mother was the cause of her father's (Rishi Kapoor) death. (Shabana was accused of having killed her husband, and also had stood trial for it). This makes their relation pretty thorny, and to worsen matters, Urmila marries Salim (Arjun Rampal), a writer, against her mother's wishes. Urmila and Arjun move away to a hill station and settle down. Urmila also has a mentally challenged sister Nazneen (Dia Mirza), who moves with her to her new home.

The dramatic sequences between Shabana and Urmila are the best part of the enterprise. The sequences when the ladies confront and spit venom at each other keeps the viewer's interest alive. The confrontations are not just well penned, but equally well emoted.

But the biggest drawback is its climax. The culmination to the story and the note on which the film ends [a song begins abruptly!] mars the impact of the film completely.

Tehzeeb does have a magnum opus in Meherbaan, but one such preeminent composition cannot really compensate the losses made by other average compositions.

On the whole, TEHZEEB lacks the power to captivate, mesmerise and enthral the viewer, courtesy a weak script.