Filhaal...

A highly anticipated movie, for it was from Meghna Gulzar, daughter of celebrated poet-writer-director Gulazar. And more because, 'dil chahta hai' by Farhan Akhtar (son of another famouus poet-writer Javed Akhter)

before this had created a wave of anticipation from this new breed of directors...anyways...the movie written/directed by Meghna Gulzar, is about four people and their journey through a period in their lives where their lives get entangled due to a twist of fate.

The film's theme - surrogate motherhood has been dealt with in other hindi movie before this, but none so sensitively. This is the strong

point of the movie, where Gulzar's sensitivity shines through his daughter's work. Some of the scenes in the movie are handled very well and all the lead actors do a very decent job giving a very sensitive performace. Sanjay Suri and Tabu look great together on the screen and both of them emote very well, Sushmita is good in parts but sometimes her character itself seems confused, thus making her look less convincing. Palash Sen's charcter is the weakest link, it's never clear in the movie, why he does what he does. That's where Meghna fails as a writer. Also the movie has a very jerky narrative in the first half where the viewer is deliberately confused and I wonder if it was intentional...or was the director trying to build some kind of suspense ? I believe the movie should have been played chronolgically. I'll be be lenient to the director and attribute this to her inexperience. The music is good, but the songs break the narrative, especially in the second half.

But in all, a good subject, fair treatment (there is much room for improvement though) and great visuals make this a decent family movie. Also being her first movie, I'll give her a cool 7.0/10.0. But we expect a lot better from her.

Filhaal.. the moment, the present.. is an intelligent movie educating the complications and conflicts that would follow a surrogacy pregnancy. Sia and Rewa, 2 very good childhood friends see each other through thick and thin of life. When Rewa has a miscarriage and loses ability to conceive, Sia steps in to offer her womb for the home of their baby. The bollywood audience has previously been mislead on the concept of surrogacy from the movie Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, where the husband is pushed into having an extra marital sex with a prostitute in order to be able to make her pregnant with is child, therefore the bearer of the family name.

Here we see middle class people, dealing with middle class problems in relationships which most of us can identify with in our everyday lives. Rewa being jealous, and Sia being emotional over her pregnancy, is all legitimate walks of life which we can not change regardless of whether we are best friends or siblings. I like the way the true shade of human is shown here, the color gray, instead of the usual Miss goody two shoes. The way the story slowly unfolds is simply brilliant yet solemn. Sushmita's best performance as yet, Tabu is brilliant as always. I have been looking forward to Meghna's next film ever since.

Very poor marketing strategy.

While every effort at intelligent cinema should be encouraged, this effort was like going up the wrong tree.

Every movie maker need to know their audience. In particular for a picture with an unconventional theme as this.

The sad reality is even in 2002 this kind of movie is not appealing to the masses.

A movie can this could have made a great TV serial.

The subject is itself not new. I remember seeing a similar movie 25 years ago starring Victor Bannerjee, Sharmila Tagore and Shabana Azmi.

The Gorgeous Cinematography that has been a patent of the Indian Cinema is evident in the title song scene-incidentally this is a real melody of a song. Sushmita Sen, after Aankhen where I thought that her performance was underrated, she has prevailed again with a very expressive perf.,whereas Tabu has the eternal quzzical look and she is grossly overarated as an actress similar to Salman Khan and Sharukh Khan. The hysteria about the acting prowess of these so called Stars has to stop since the intelligence of the viewer is being questioned. On a recent poll I have seen Salman Khan is rated as a better actor than Sharukh Khan and he in turn is voted better than Amitab Bachchan. This is absurdity at peak to say the least. There is some immaturity in direction akin to the immature and naive anwers that Beuty Pagent contestants come up with. But for a new Director this is excusable. The movie is watchable.

Meghna Gulzar's directorial debut is a fantastic effort. She takes a rather serious topic of surrogate motherhood and produces a gem of a movie that is very real-life.

Sush and Tabu give one of the most convincing performances of their individual careers. Sanjay Suri is fantastic as usual.Its a shame that he doesn't get as many chances as some other clowns like Fardeen Khan!

Though I would say that the movie is slightly slow for everyday viewer. Cinematography is exceptional and all songs are part of the movie.

I would highly recommend this movie to someone who looks for some substance in their movies.