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Release
date:
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September 7, 2018
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Director:
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Nila Madhab Panda
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Cast:
Language:
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Tathastu, Ranvir Shorey, Pauli
Dam, Aryan Preet, Kumud Mishra
Hindi
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Once upon a time in Gurgaon, a
little boy did not want to do his daily morning business by the rail tracks
with the other residents of his slum. So he lobbied his mother and father for a
toilet in their house, and dreamt of a spotlessly clean, neon-coloured room
where he could relieve himself each day without turning this intensely private
part of his routine into a social exercise. Mom, who worked in an agarbatti
factory, supported him, but churlish Dad, a cycle-rickshaw driver, could not
see beyond his own ambition to graduate to an autorickshaw.
The moment Halkaa (Relief) opens, you know of course the answer to the
question: will they live happily ever after? This is not necessarily a problem,
since the end is not all that counts – the journey matters. You also know from
the beginning that the film is not striving for an overly realistic tone.
Mirroring the shiny new shauchalay of
Pichku’s fantasy and his mother’s perfectly manicured nails at the tips of her
long and slender, pretty fingers, the film adopts a beamingly positive tone
from the start, offering us a determinedly sanitised, sweetened, cutesefied
view of the deprivations the child suffers and the hovel he inhabits.
This approach would have been fair
enough if the rest of the narrative had depth. After all, writer-director Nila
Madhab Panda is the man who gave us the equally cheery-in-trying-circumstances I Am Kalam (2011), a rewarding saga –
insightful in the ultimate analysis – of an impoverished orphan keen to get an
education, and last year’s unapologetically dismal, poignant environment film Kadvi Hawa (Bitter Wind). So it makes
sense to keep an open mind and invest in Panda since there is no telling where
he might take us through Pichku’s story. Sadly, the investment does not pay off
this time.
Over and above all its weaknesses,
what hampers Halkaa most is its
superficial writing. The story is credited jointly to Panda and Nitin Dixit,
the screenplay and dialogues to Dixit. The film has a cause, and appears to
have assumed that overt messaging supplemented by the tiny leading man’s
darling appearance and Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s mildly engaging songs are enough.
They are not.
Halkaa starts off reasonably well –
Pichku’s attempts to steer clear of the railway line near his colony are funny,
and young Tathastu who plays Pichku is nice. As the narrative rolls along
though, it becomes clear that the screenplay has no depth, several plot twists
feel contrived and too many plot elements seem borrowed from other children’s
films, including I Am Kalam (most
especially the poorly written rich child who watches Pichku and his gang from a
distance, and ultimately befriends the hero). And so, Tathastu ends up relying
too much on his innate charm to strike a chord with the audience since the
writing does not give him the substance on which to hang his performance.
Ranvir Shorey, who was so brilliant
in Kadvi Hawa, is the best thing
about this film, playing with gusto the unlikeable, insensitive father who is
utterly impervious to and confused by his son’s concerns. There’s only so much
even he can do though with this limited storyline.
Kumud Mishra is wasted in a badly
conceptualised role. Pauli Dam as Pichku’s mother is glamourised in the most
incongruous fashion for this setting. I am not saying there are no good-looking
women in slums, I am pointing out that it is impossible to be a slumdweller and
such an industrious factory worker with never a hair out of place or at least a
spot of chipped nail polish.
From the Bhoothnath films to Taare
Zameen Par, I Am Kalam, Chillar Party, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Dhanak and Dangal,
several Hindi films of the past decade have scored big with talented child
actors. Casting directors such as Mukesh Chhabra and Honey Trehan have turned
the discovery of gifted under-18s into a high art form. Halkaa has not toiled enough on this front. While Tathastu is certainly
huggable and may perhaps deliver a better performance in a better film, and
Aryan Preet who plays his friend Gopi is a charming fellow handicapped by
flimsy writing, there are no excuses for the rest of the kiddy gang. The
wealthy boy from a swish school struggles to emote. And not one of the
remaining bachcha party in the slum
is as arresting as that firecracker called Harsh Mayar from I Am Kalam or that other firecracker
called Hetal Gada from Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dhanak.
The simple aspirations of innocent
children have been a happy hunting ground for many talented filmmakers in the
past. As recently as 2015, Tamil director M. Manikandan turned the longing of
two Chennai slumkids for a slice of pizza into the marvellous Kaaka Muttai (Crow’s Eggs), which won
National Awards at home and accolades abroad. India’s problem of open
defecation was the theme of Bollywood director Shree Narayan Singh’s Akshay
Kumar-Bhumi Pednekar-starrer Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017), which unfortunately became a propaganda vehicle for the
ruling party. It is the Tamil film industry a.k.a. Kollywood – again – that
should get the credit for making one of the country’s most mature films on the
subject: the National Award-winning political satire Joker (2016). Halkaa
tries to be a children’s satire, but flounders from the word go.
Great films are born of great
screenplays. This one sounds more like an ad advocating the use of toilets
stretched to a 114-minutes-long feature and including some of the most blatant
product placements ever seen on screen. It means well, but good intentions and
a wide-eyed hero are just not enough.
Rating
(out of five stars): *1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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114 minutes
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This
review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/HalkaaTheMovie/
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