What’s eating Buddhi?
Apna Asmaan
Would you offer up your child as a hapless guinea pig to a charlatan, regardless of the cost? In their desperate, never-ending quest for a miracle, Ravi and Padmini (Irrfan Khan and Shobana) inject an unproven substance into their mildly autistic son, with consequences they are unable to handle.
First-time director Kaushik Roy mines his own experiences with son Orko to bring alive the screen Buddhi, as well the larger, universal theme of all parents wanting a ‘normal’, intelligent child.
Some of the touches are superb: a neighbourhood shopkeeper trying to gyp Buddhi (Dhruv Panjwani), the slights that even so-called educated people keep passing off as concern, and the constant attrition that wears down Ravi and Padmini.
Despite counsel to the contrary from the boy’s doctor (Rajat Kapoor), Padmini blames the father for Buddhi’s condition; he feels done against and helpless, something that Irrfan is so good at playing. The actors are all very good, including the debutant Dhruv. Post interval, though, when the slow learner turns into a raging genius, the film becomes disquieting.
But the end, even if a trifle improbable, brings the film back on track. The old Buddhi returns, and this time the parents’ joy is tempered by understanding, appreciation and acceptance. And that’s the strongest, sweetest take-away from Apna Asmaan: it’s not about oh-god-this-is-mylot resignation, but about loving living.
Boy scouts
Dhamaal
FOUR laybouts, one cop, and one irate Parsi: this motley lot is after loot hidden in a mysterious location in a Goan church, and Dhamaal all about the adventures they have on the way.
So in Indra Kumar’s return to direction after a sizeable gap, this is what we get: Javed Jaffery as an effective imbecile, Riteish Deshmukh as a getting-better-with-each-film comic, Ashish Chowdhary who is visible for the first time, and a strangely subdued Arshad Warsi, offset by a manically-charged Asrani. Sanjay Dutt is the only big star here, and as befits big stars, he gets the biggest scenes and lines.
Psst, this one has no girls. Indra Kumar pulls off an all-boys movie, keeping the female of the species strictly bound to the item numbers.
Death becomes her
Darling
EVERY once in a while RGV keeps coming back to ghosts: remember his most successful tryst with chalky female aatmas in Bhoot? As well as Raat. With Darling, he’s lost the plot twice in as many weeks. Thwarted lover Esha Deol dies when Fardeen Khan pushes her hard against the sharp edge of a wall. She climbs out of her muddy grave and starts making like the Hutch pug, following Fardeen everywhere he goes. Fardeen shakes, rattles and rolls. Esha grimaces and shows her teeth. Isha Koppikar looks more like a bai than a wife, and alternates between simpering and snarling. And there’s not one scary moment in the whole. What’s with you, Ramu?
No bliss this
License to Wed
IN License to Wed, Ben and Sadie, a perfectly nice-seeming, personality-free couple (John Krasinski and Mandy Moore), meet at a Starbucks, fall in love and decide to marry. But wait. An obstacle lies between them and wedded bliss in the unctuous, smiling person of Robin Williams, who plays a minister with definite ideas about what it takes to make a marriage work.
The only thing that kept me watching License to Wed until the end (apart from being paid to do so) was the faith, perhaps misplaced, that I will not see a worse movie this year. If the beloved with whom you see License to Wed can’t stop talking about how great it was, you might want to cancel the nuptials. Or, call a lawyer.
Deadly distraction
Disturbia
DISTURBIA, a kind of adolescent Rear Window, is nowhere near as clumsy or grandiose as its title. The hero, a troubled young man named Kale(Shia LaBeouf) and his mother (Carrie-Anne Moss) live in a lovely house on a leafy block, and the possibility that a serial killer may live next door just adds character.
Not that Kale’s life is exactly idyllic. Reeling from a family tragedy, he finds himself in serious trouble for an assault, sentencing him to house arrest.
Stripped of television, video games and iPod by his harried mom, Kale is left with nothing better to do than spy on the neighbours.