I Want to Talk

Shoojit Sircar once again concocts a beautifully moving drama with Abhishek Bachchan delivering one of his finest performances to date. The film takes a short while to draw you into its dramatic, often humourous, occasionally guilt-ridden, frequently painful, surgery-filled universe. But once you're in, there's no turning back. The ride that Arjun Sen, the true-blue marketer takes you on, is poignant and hard-hitting. At its core, the film is a drama that's primarily told from Arjun's perspective, replete with interestingly philosophic, pun-filled voiceovers.

But the world that Arjun lives in, is full of equally fascinating characters. His daughter Reya (played by Ahilya Bamroo, with Pearle Dey playing the child version), Dr. Jayant (Jayant Kripalani), adorable nurse Nancy (Kristin Goddard), caretaker Johnny (Johnny Lever) all have key roles to play. They're all so well-written (Ritesh Shah's the screenwriter) and performed. Taba Chake's music is at once soothing and soul-stirring. DoP Avik Mukhopadhyay candidly captures Arjun's life, including his physical and mental transformations. Bachchan Jr gives it his all, in a superb performance that needs larger discussion.

I feel sad for Bollywood - they don't even want to appreciate some of their greatest storytellers. Can Shoojit Sircar come over to Malayalam and work with some of our finest? 2024 just wasn't the year for several content-driven filmmakers in Bollywood-Vasan Bala (wasn't a big fan of Jigra but still), Dibakar Banerjee (did not watch LSD 2), Shoojit Sircar (case in point), plus an honorable mention to Anurag Kashyap who has apparently decided to move on from Bollywood. The fault is on the larger Hindi-speaking audiences for not supporting them, especially in theatres.