Paa, is Director / Writer Balki’s second film and the Amitabh Abhishek pairing, and Amitabh as a young kid, have been it’s biggest selling points. But the connect with Amitabh’s character, Auro never really happens and even the father-son interaction between Amitabh-Abhishek involves just one Delhi trip. So while it does have it’s satisfying moments, Paa somehow is just not filling enough.
But to begin at the beginning, Vidya Balan and Abhisek are students studying abroad, who get into a relationship. But when Vidya gets pregnant and Abhishek suggests an abortion, she breaks up from him. Thanks to a supporting mother, Vidya decides to have the baby. But this baby suffers from a rare premature aging disease, and we have a heavily made up Amitabh Bachhan playing this part. The rest of the movie is about how Auro accidentally meets his father, and how the relationship between father and the terminally ill son.
This is an interesting enough premise, but a major part of the movie focuses on Abhishek and his life as a budding politician(liberally modeled along the lines of Rahul Gandhi). There is a big sequence to establish Abhishek as a hero, but nothing comparable for Auro. Sure, we see a lot of slices of his everyday life and he also gets some really intelligent and witty dialogues, but the emotional connect with him never happens. And for a movie which centered on the father-son relationship, they just do not get enough time together. And that is the films biggest drawback.
On the technical side, the art direction, editing and cinematography are good, as is the costume design. Illaiyaraja’s music is refreshingly different, and it’s subtlety ensures that this fairly serious topic is treated lightly. On the acting front Paresh Rawal, Arundhati Nag are good. Vidya Balan is very good in a restrained performance, though she goes overboard just once in a scene where she confronts her mother. Amitabh Bachhan has put in a lot of effort in his body language, etc - but burdened by his heavy make up, he does not get enough leeway for portraying expressions.
As for Abhishek Bachhan, he is growing with every film and once again he does a great job in bringing his character to life. Perhaps with just Abhishek, and a normal child actor playing his estranged and terminally ill son - this movie would have had a greater emotional connect.
But as it stands, Paa bears the burden of a differently cast Amitabh Bachhan, and that’s what let’s it down. All in all this is a sensitively handled story, but burdened by the marketing of ‘Auro’ and the ‘Father-Son’ angle, it falls short of the very expectations that it raises. Still it is much better than regular Bollywood stuff, and hence we’d like to give it 3 stars.