The film is based on the life of a real cancer survivor, who is a close friend of director Shoojit Sircar. The story highlights Arjun’s complex relationship with his daughter Reya, played by child actor Pearle Dey in different stages and later by the impressive Ahilya Bamru as a teenager.
The film is slow moving. It does not dramatically portray Arjun Sen as the hero. Like, say, Anand from Anand (1971), who never lets the illness get the best of him, Arjun is a street smart guy who knows which buttons to press to get his way. He is a motormouth who loves to talk. And convincing is what marketing is all about – you confuse your target audience until they are forced to accept your argument. He has the ability to laugh at himself. His doctor, Jayant Deb (Jayant Kripalani), feels that his patient has manipulated him into performing the surgery. It’s a role reversal of sorts. Mostly, we hear that doctors are forcing patients to undergo surgery. A long-lasting bond is formed between the two, with the doctor even giving his house keys to his favorite patient. They become golfing buddies and socialize together. Jayant Kripalani has always been a reliable actor and fits a role that requires dry humor.
Arjun is shown to be romantically involved with one of his nurses, Nancy (Christine Goddard), although nothing is explicitly shown. She saves his life once by performing CPR but also breaks two ribs in the process – the kind of bittersweet humor the film serves up. It’s not campy or slapstick though, mind you. The humor used by Shoojit Sircar is very subtle. Despite the presence of Johnny Lever, who gives perhaps the most restrained performance of his life, there are no extreme, laugh-out-loud moments. It’s all situational, designed to make you smile rather than laugh. In another scene, Arjun’s elder brother is being taken out of the hospital in a wheelchair while explaining the complex medical procedure. This is a part of life. And life, as we know it, can be dull and dreary one moment and take a turn for the worse the next. More than anything else, this film celebrates the unpredictability of life.
Child actor Pearle Dey is a joy to watch as a coming-of-age child. She is a natural in front of the camera and so is Ahilya Bamru, who plays a typical, rebellious teenager with her heart in the right place. Her confrontational scenes with Abhishek, especially where she talks about her angst of being a child of a broken home, are the soul of the film. The closure he gets in the end is a catharsis of sorts. Abhishek Bachchan has completely immersed himself in the character. The scenes where he goes bald after his first surgery, his eyes look dead, seemingly unable to accept his reality, speak of the actor in him. Later, as he resolves to fight, his eyes begin to shine with determination. The actor has tried his best to play the character like a common film hero without worrying about looking like a star. He embraces both the dad bod and the dad joke with a vengeance. The actor has completely dedicated himself to the character and we really haven’t seen this side of Abhishek in a long time.
Avik Mukhopadhyay’s cinematography is excellent and some of the scenes, especially the lake portions, are quite picturesque. The makeup and prosthetics are also top notch. Is it a perfect movie? Not enough. We don’t see Arjun’s abandoned wife even once. He has undergone 20 surgeries and it is difficult to understand that she wants to be absent from this trip. The director did not explain why this was so. Arjun has lost his job but seems to be doing quite well for himself. Given the fact that healthcare in the US is quite expensive, where is the money for all these surgeries coming from? There are definitely gaps in the story and it feels like instead of connecting all the loose ends, Shoojit Sircar has deliberately scattered them, leaving us to make our own guesses. The film is more of a passion project than a commercial vehicle. It tells a humorous story about human resilience, going its own way while not adhering to the rigid norms of cinema. Watch it for the acting talent on display and the message it conveys with its twisty ways.
Also see: Abhishek Bachchan undergoes physical transformation for I Want to Talk