In this year marked by a mammoth reincarnation tale which
minted money faster than you could count the guest appearances in its title
track, I witnessed a couple of reincarnations myself. First, the Calvin in me
who used to run on road as if riding a horse and for whom Becker was bad and
Edberg was the good guy.(God, why the hell did I even think like that? I knew
nothing about them except their names!) And secodly the resident artist who had
debuted with an A+ in art in the new city school(where he had migrated from
village hindi medium school) and died later with an overdose of’Java’, got a
second life.
Actor, producer Aamir Khan makes a directorial debut which
has earned him’Debut of the Year’ title from Times Of India and though his
venture is not the epitome of perfection the title seems to be well deserved.
The basic premise of movie is pretty simple: parents unable
to understand problems of their dyslexic child admit him in a boarding school
where he undergoes trauma everyday till a compassionate teacher helps him
overcome his disability and regain his confidence to emerge victorious. It’s
the’treatment’ which makes it a’treat’!
Full marks to debutant cinematographer Setu who shows us the
world as seen by eyes of an eight year old. I won’t easily forget how a yellow
drop of color creates a butterfly shape when it touches the red drop!
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are in vintage form and their tunes
coupled with Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics form an extra character who speaks the
unspoken dialogues and shapes the narrative.
Amole Gupte’s unhurried and lucid screenplay, interspersed
with absolutely first rate animations by animators of Tata Elxsi, does well to
delve inside child’s mind and depict both his imaginations and his trauma. Not
the same can however be said for his dialogues though. Second half has got some
very jarring heavily loaded dialogues as if to counter the normal chit-chatty
enjoyable ones in first half.
So while first half moves at an easy pace and establishes
the characters quite effortlessly, post intermission things just seem to drag.
The climax is very well conceived and executed and though it is predictable and
plays entirely on your emotions, you love it for its heart-warming simplicity.
Aamir Khan has repeatedly said that he wanted to finish
shooting this movie before his protagonist Darsheel Safary grows up and is lost
for the role. I think he was correct. One reason that makes character of Ishan
(Darsheel) leaves such an impact on you is the child himself, who is the real
star here. You connect with Ishan’s character so well that you can feel the
pain when he is hit by chalk or is caned! Kudos to director for not trying to
over exploit the child as most film makers are doing these days.He doesn’t try
to add saccarine to Ishan’s character by making him talk too much which would
not have gone well with a child lost in his own imaginary world.
Aamir playing Ram Shankar the friend, philosopher and guide
for Ishan seems to be in his social worker persona and gets all of those heavy
dialogues I talked about earlier. Supporting cast is shorn of known faces but
is absolutely first rate. You shed a tear for helplessness of mother(Tisca
Chopra), scoff at papa(Vipin Sharma) for being so strict and curse the
teachers for thrashing the child. All the child actors too have performed well.
Something tells me that only Khan could take up such
non-commercial topic like dyslexia and have guts to educate viewers apart from
entertaining them and still pull it off convincingly! Go watch this film to
have a peek at the world with a child’s eyes and you may see every child with a
new eye.