I was scared of watching Guzarish before because of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Devdas irritated me a lot. SLB’s ridiculous presentation of Sharatchandra’s great story made it irritating. Then came “Saawariya”…I remember it as a horror film…why and what he has made, God knows. Even “Black” did not impress me despite of all the hype media created around it. SLB started very well with “Khamoshi” and I trusted him completely after “Hum dil de chuke Sanam” but after next 2-3 movies I lost the faith. So, though I was hesitant but was also feeling that this may be a come back for SLB, and I was getting good reviews from trusted sources too, so I went for it. Not to say that it did not disappoint me.
Guzarish is a good meaningful movie. It raises an issue….but more than the issue it shows the effect of it on people related to it. Ethan (Hritik Roshan) was a magician who is completely paralyzed and on bed from last 14 years after an accident during his show. He is dependent on his nurse Sofia (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). It is a tell of human emotions which we rarely see on screen nowadays. Sofia is taking care of Ethan from last 14 years now without any break. That’s great…this reminds me heroins of Sharatchandra’s stories. Ethan is working as a radio jockey now who spreads message of life to those who have met the same fate as him. Though he spreads the happiness and love for life he himself is fed up of living like this.
Finally he files a petition for euthanasia i.e. mercy killing through his lawyer friend. His petition gets rejected by court saying there is no law in India which supports this. His friend, doctor and nurse do not approve of his idea initially but seeing his pain they support him. This is another thing that up till this point we could not see that pain. He tries to build the support from his listeners and appeal in the court again. It’s not about his appeal and its result but it’s about the emotions all the characters go through in this process. There is a young guy Omar who come there to learn magic from Ethan and is mad about it. Soon he builds a bond with his teacher and his nurse. They live like a family, sharing the sorrows and happiness. Ethan has lost the faith in life and lives in his past remembering those golden days. Sofia is unknowingly in love with him and Ethan too is unaware of this but they share a great bond. Sofia has her own family but scarifies everything for taking care of Ethan. Initially she gets angry about Ethan’s petition but then she too understands him and supports him for her love because she wants Ethan to be happy. Now among so many craps on the name of love story….Love aajkal, anjaana anjaani etc etc and people like Karan Johar who have made love as a “Chhichhora” part of life, their is a filmmaker who knows what is love and it’s story though he is not able to show this with perfection but at least he tries.Love is not a superficial thought but it’s a deep deep emotion. What they show on the name of love story is actually lust, greed and selfishness story. Baharhaal, Protagonists come to know about the immense love they have for each other when Sofia’s husband beats her and takes her away. She gets the divorce and comes back. This particular seen is so great and it touches you. She is back with her pure and selfless love, divorcing her rich husband and secure life for nothing as she knows Ethan is about to die and he has nothing to leave behind… Few sequences are memorable, the one where Ethan tells about his first magic trick to Omar. It was about the rain of coins from his body when his mother shakes him up. He says the smile on his mother’s face was his first magic. Quit meaningful.
Another is the seen where it starts raining heavily and the sealing just above Ethan’s head starts leaking. Rain drops fall straight on Ethan’s forehead and no one is around to move him. He face it whole night until Sofia comes there to see the horrible incident. This is the only place where we feel his helplessness and his pain.
After all the praises now let’s come to some criticism. Guzarish is good but not excellent, When I think about it one film pops up in my mind that is Anand. It could have been another Anand but it’s not. Anand too portrays the love for life in contrast of death. In Guzarish they say Ethan is in pain but he doesn’t looks like that, Anand is also in pain but he laughs loudly and spreads the happiness…the difference lies in the reach of hero’s pain into your heart. Anand compels you to burst out…you yourself feel the pain of Anand and the people around him, Guzarish fails to do so…you don’t relate with Ethan completely…you do not feel the greatness of pain which drives him to ask for death. Anand is a very simple way of story telling which goes directly into your heart whereas Guzarish is not. SLB still needs to get rid of nautanki element in his story telling. He tries to create some drama to get the emotions which kills the essence. In Anand, a very small part of a nurse succeeds bringing the tears in your eyes whereas Ethan’s mother is not able to bring the same effect. This is a combined fault…Actor’s, writer’s and director’s…despite all the exercise it does not bring tears to your eyes and that is a failure for such story.
Performance wise Hritik is on top of everything…he excels. He is a great actor. He is able to convey the pain through his eyes and that is the biggest success of any actor. Ashwarya has improved but she cannot go beyond her limits, she swings between acting and overacting. I don’t know the name of Ethan’s lawyer friend but she is irritating. I don’t know why nowadays there is a trend to speak the dialogues with a jhatka…they try to speak the dialogues in Hollywood way forgetting it is a Hindi film. New comer Aditya Roy Kapoor is very impressive…he is really a talented guy. Direction is great in sense of sets and average in terms of overall effect of the movie. SLB needs self-analysis. The problem is when a person becomes big he stops developing….he starts thinking that whatever he does is just great. Dialogues are good but sometimes becomes dramatic, specially Ethan’s mother’s dialogues which were supposed to make you cry but were highly unimpressive.
Now let’s talk about music which is always at its highest level in SLB’s movies. In fact when I hear about his forthcoming movie I eagerly wait for the music because he is the only director in our times who has a great sense of music. He does not produce noise on the name of young generation. This time he has turned music director himself and the music of Guzarish shows that there was always an influence of SLB in music of all his movies. Those were the combined efforts of SLB and his music directors but this is completely his own creation which makes it inferior than his earlier films. Music is good but not of the level of his earlier movies. All the songs are soulful and lyrics are good. I like “Tera zikr” most. Songs create a peaceful environment but I don’t know if they would last long.
Finally it seems SLB’s obsession with splendid sets is being normalized and he is again coming back to the soul of the movie which is story but you need some workshop dear SLB.
Review is over but the topic it has raised is debatable. Should euthanasia be made legal? Can one have the right to die as he has the right to live? Is a person free to choose between life and death? what say?