Somewhere in the middle of the movie, Priety Zinta comes to know from Rekha, Hrithik’s mother, that he is an eight-year-old boy in a man’s body. And all his cleverness was of a mere child.
And you suddenly realize that to be true of the movie also.
The movie is guileless in its simple linear structure, its delineation of the good and bad, the funny and unfunny, and its creation of the extra-terrestrial who is more human emotionally than the next-door kid.
The fact that Hrithik struts around as a man with gastric problems, when he actually wants to show a child who wants to be accepted, is of course the greater curiosity than the little man from space. And one has to concede, whatever the interpretation that Hrithik finally decides upon, he gives it a curious innocence and an incredibly mobile face which works marvelously to give the movie its raison d’etre, and your eye-buds their watery saltiness.
The other things fall in too pat: the villain and his cohorts, the good-hearted girl and even ET, who is finally only a form of divine intervention to assist the weak.
But why quibble? In the rarefied world of the “good” commercial film, it is occasion enough to celebrate that the hero is shown to be, well, different. Because he does everything else pretty much on line with the hoary tradition of the Indian screen hero.
What gives the movie its little halo is the light-hearted touch, where the director quickly seeks relief after everything, which counts as evil or emotionally laden.
Ironically, while it gives the movie it’s fleet-footedness, it also robs it of its involvement. The funny moments are precisely those and so are the sad ones. But there are precious few moments when you want to hug Hrithik or the little man from space, for you know what they stand for, and what they will do and why.
And hence at the very core there is very little warmth generated, and very few moments when you care.
And that’s why, while the characters prance through lush and glorious landscapes in designer-wear singing hummable tunes, and the little man from space enters Hrithik’s world, he is just not able to enter the heart of the viewer…
And if the movie does not get viewers into the hall in the numbers it would have liked to, it will be, ironically, because it was bold, but not bold enough; warm, but not warm enough; and yes, different, but not different enough….