Note/Disclaimer/Info: THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE, PLEASE DO NOT READ THE REV AND CALL ME NAMES, I AM GOING INTO DETAILS.
This is one movie that managed to surprise me. I guess knowing, or in this case not knowing, the story adds to the experience. Performances by the lead actors were a surprise too. The closest metaphor I can come up with is that the movie is like finding a slightly gooey but perfectly welcome bit of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk at the bottom of glass of ‘forcibly gulped’ doodh. : ) I think I missed the first 5 minutes of this movie, so can’t talk about starters. (Uff...!!)
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The Plot
Dr. Akash (John Abraham surprises) is still coming to grips with the fact that his wife, Dr. Maya (Tara Sharma) is no more. I saw this movie from where the good doctor Akki (as Akash was called by Maya) is ‘samjhao-ing’ a patient about not giving up on life. All the usual clichés about leaving a void in loved ones’ lives and them being unable to find closure and all that...just to get out the line that he knows what’s it like to lose a dear one, that is Maya.
Soon after, things start happening. Droplets of water fall on Akki’s spectacles out of nowhere, a child who’s had multiple near-death experiences talks to Akki about having met Maya in a tunnel of light, the house where the couple lived floods with water that comes out the walls in huge gushing torrents...the usual scenes of haunting. Maya’s traumatised parrot (now that was contradiction in terms!) starts jabbering again about her presence in the house.
Akki being a non-believer, at first thinks he’s losing it because of the grief over Maya’s and their unborn child’s death. After a visit to Sister Martha (a feisty Zohra Sehgal), collector of verbatim near-death accounts from innumerable patients, Akki decides to suspend disbelief. But there’s the practical neighbour Tanya (Mahima Choudhary wasted) who convinces him again that he’s cracking up. Tells him to pack up and leave without all the things that remind him of his life with Maya.
Akki decides to try it but discovers that someone or something does not want him to leave! All the packed stuff gets rearranged in their right places and winds howl... (yadda, yadda, yadda). The point is, Akki gets a magnifying glass and takes a closer look at some photographs of Maya sent along from the place where she died and it sends him on a journey, to find out whether if by some chance she’s still living somewhere. He reaches a supposedly desolate, uncivilised land somewhere in the north-east (why are the north-east people always typecast as uncouth, uncivilised cannibals??) where he gets a guide (Raj Zutshi – I wish he would take a dive over the picturesque waterfalls) who takes Akki around the places where Maya went. And then...well, its a journey of discovery, think you should see this movie.
The Analysis
John Abraham was a surprise – I don’t know if the mellow act was an act or if he was doing what came naturally to him, playing dumb that is. Tara Sharma was a in blink-and-you-miss-me kind of role and of course, she was dead…so there! While she was alive, she was the irritating bubbly kind of wifey and very, very ziddi – Akki asked her not to go to the back of beyond while being six months along with child, but she being the ziddi do-gooder, went anyway and got washed out – literally. Mahima Choudhary as the shrieking, well-wishing neighbour (shrieking not as giggly, but as get-your-act-together-buddy kind of thing) makes you wish she’d get a life! By the way, I don’t know if air-hostesses earn enough to live all on their ownsome lonesome in a huge house in what I thought was a prime piece of real estate in Delhi. I liked the kid with the huge eyes – he was called Nakul in the movie – like all kids, he too was good at what he did. For a child who’s had multiple near-death experiences, he was quite ebullient or maybe kids just are that resilient? Raj Zutshi does not deserve more print space than this, so we stop here.
Someone had a good idea about using mirrors in this movie, so the fear induction method was a little novel. Here you see her, here you don’t. Deliciously spooky! Lighting was effective too. The jarring elements were Raj Zutshi, the parrot, the huge house and the tribal stereotypes – in that order. The north-east (well, I don’t know if it was the north-east at all) was pretty scenic or at least what they decided to spend footage on. Couple of beautiful water-falls on film, without the shots of a stupid Abraham jumping into one, of course.
The plot needed a little more tautness, without the dragging songs preferably. Oh yea, I did not like the songs, sorry about that!
The Conclusion
This one is certainly not in the class of DDLJ or even Raaz. But it tries hard and that’s enough. While there weren’t any great takeaways from this movie, it does leave you with a tingling feeling at the end.
Do watch it at least once.
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