Release date:
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March 4, 2016
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Director:
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Mozez Singh
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Cast:
Language:
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Vicky Kaushal,
Sarah-Jane Dias, Raaghav Chanana, Manish Chaudhari,
Meghana Malik, Harmehroz Singh
Hindi
|
It boggles the mind
that one of the producers of The Lunchbox
is a co-producer of Zubaan.
If you were to
pre-judge Zubaan by its credits
alone, you might assume that it is an artistic gem. After all, Guneet Monga’s
Sikhya Entertainment earlier backed that cinematic jewel about two people
anonymously bonding over food, which made waves in India and abroad in 2014; the
male lead is His Royal Cuteness Vicky Kaushal who burst on to the national
scene with last year’s Masaan;
Vicky’s co-star here is model-cum-actress Sarah-Jane Dias who sparkled in Angry Indian Goddesses just months back;
and Varun Grover who scripted Masaan
is one of the lyricists featured here.
Aur kya chahiye? Bahut kuch, as it turns out. A worthwhile story, a solid script and
strong direction, among other things.
This is the sort of
film that could be screened for FTII freshers to illustrate that eternal
cinematic truism: that writing is the foundation of any good film, direction is
its cornerstone, and all the embellishments in the world cannot salvage a
feature that is deficient in either of the above departments.
Debutant director
Mozez Singh’s Zubaan is a meandering
mess. It wanders all over the place as it purportedly tells the coming-of-age story
of a Sikh boy called Dilsher Singh from Gurdaspur who comes to Delhi to become
the protégé of a billionaire builder. The said builder, one Gurucharan Sikand a.k.a.
Guru (Manish Chaudhari), had apparently started his career from scratch in
Gurdaspur. Many years back, he gifted a pen to a shy little chappie (Harmehroz
Singh) from his home town and imparted some unsolicited wisdom to the child, who was so taken in
that he held on to the pen and zipped off pronto to Delhi as soon as he was able,
to use the pen as a reminder of that interaction, sneak his way into said
billionaire’s affections and I s’pose become wealthy himself.
To achieve these
goals, he lies through his teeth, maims a man, betrays another and deliberately
destabilises Guru’s family. Why? I mean, what is it about that single, passing
interaction from all those years back that makes Guru so desirable over and
above all the other rich guys in the city? What makes him worth all that
deception and violence? Don’t know. Dilsher’s seeming motivations are simply
not convincing.
Vicky plays the
grown-up Dilsher. Somewhere between his pind
and the sheher he cuts his hair and gets
rid of his pagri for reasons not explained
to us, until he returns to his turban and Gurdaspur in the end, which I guess
is a way of saying he found himself during the course of the film. So deep. So
very very deep.
The Zubaan mix has many elements that are no
doubt meant to have equally profound implications: Dilsher’s stammer, his Dad
who died in tragic circumstances, Guru’s disgruntled wife (Meghana Malik, best
known as Ammaji from TV’s Na Aana Iss Des
Laado), his son Surya (Raaghav Chanana) who he abhors, a pretty girl called
Amira (Sarah-Jane Dias) who is coveted by Surya, her dead brother Dhruv who
adds nothing to the storyline but is discussed anyway in mystical tones, and
lots of shadowy spaces.
At one point in the
story, Amira holds a memorial of sorts for Dhruv under the stars at a kinda
camp she calls Dhruv Tara, in some unnamed desert region in Delhi or
thereabouts. She erects a giant white cloth star there, sings a long song and
has all her friends release floating lamps up into the sky. Why? What does this
sub-plot mean? How does it contribute to Dilsher’s journey?
I repeat: Don’t
know. And by now, don’t care.
There is an early
scene in which Guru’s munim asks
Dilsher point blank: Tumhara game kya
hai? (What’s your game?) Having patiently sat through this excruciatingly
soporific flick, I am convinced Dilsher himself did not know the answer and the
writer-director does not either.
The production
design is pretty in the spaces inhabited by Zubaan’s
well-heeled characters but it is also self-conscious and studied, with too much
emphasis being given to the look over all else. The film also does not live up to
its promotional tagline “the musical journey of the year” – Music Is My Art is the only number that lingers, not for
any richness or complexity, but because it is foot-tappingly, pleasantly poppish.
At the film’s
premiere in Delhi, Mozez Singh announced that Vicky had shot for Zubaan before Masaan, which in his view technically makes Zubaan the actor’s debut film. Dear sweet, lovable Vicky, please
say a prayer of thanks that Masaan
released first. If Zubaan had come to
theatres earlier, I am not sure I would have woken up in time to catch your
next film.
Rating
(out of 5 stars): ½ (half a star)
CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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118 minutes
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