Aamir Khan’s ‘Talaash’ is a Slice of Life

‘Talaash’ has spawned a zillion reviews – in fact, reviewing the film seems to have become a mini cottage industry, and reading some of these reviews I feel I must have gone to a different movie than many of the reviewers. “Mesmerizing’ – ‘Amazing’ it was not, nor did I sit on the edge of my seat from start to finish as some have claimed they did. Nor does it deserve some of the negative comments spawned by movie-goers, after reading the reviews.

No, it’s not the greatest thing since ready-made rotis but it is definitely good cinema.

Right from the first frames where the calm of a sleeping city is shattered by a car hurtling into the sea, you are engaged. ‘Talaash’ takes unexpected twists and turns, starting out as a whodunit, changing shape like a chimera into an emotional drama, revealing the interior lives of its characters and  then flipping over again to become something else that you didn’t expect.

In the end you do connect the dots and all the parallel tales merge into one. I don’t want to be a spoiler here but the ‘talaash’ is a much deeper one than just the search for the answers to an accident-murder. The best way to enjoy it is to not label it as any one genre and take it as a slice of life.

‘Talaash’ is about the strangeness, about the randomness of life. Aamir Khan, consummate actor that he is, leaves his star persona at the door and grinds himself into the body and soul of Surjan Singh Shekhawat, small time cop, middle-class father and husband. In the film you feel his pain, his confusion, his anger, his descent to darkness.

Rani Mukerjee plays Roshni, his distraught wife who is coming to terms with the loss of their child in a drowning accident, and also with her husband’s inability to deal with this. They make a perfect fit as a middle-class couple wedged into the big city’s churning cauldron. Kareena Kapoor as Rosie the sex worker looks stunningly beautiful yet I feel her name and beauty tend to become an extra layer between her and the character she’s playing. There is an upper-class air and social aura about Kareena which made me not fully accept her as a tawdry street-walker who lives in the red-light district. Sometimes perfect beauty can be a disadvantage.

On the opposite track is Nawazuddin Siddiqui who has such a common, amazingly malleable face that,  like a chunk of tofu,  he can absorb all the flavors of whatever is cooking with him, and become part of the surroundings. It’s as if he’s been Taimur, small-time pimp and handler all his life, merging into the ugly underbelly of Mumbai  and you never doubt his ramshackle existence, the brutishness of his life.

To me ‘Talaash’ was complex, confusing and often, as life is, inexplicable, with no pat answers about why things happen the way they do.  ‘Talaash’ has some very adroit puppeeters behind the curtains who make it all look effortless, real and natural. Reema Kagti’s fast moving and assured direction keeps all the balls in the air as you move between the tales. It’s not an amazing film but definitely a good one – even minor characters make you generally believe in the world ‘Talaash’ creates.

The film has a kind of integrity which bodes well for Hindi cinema. For me, the names Reema Kagti,  Zoya Akthar, Farhan Akthar, Anurag Kashyap and of course Aamir Khan count for a lot – you get solid cinema which doesn’t mock the intelligence of the masses.  No wonder ‘Talaash’ is reported to have crossed the $ 100 crore mark in its first six days.

Coming out of the theater, you do think of the unpredictability of life, the twists and turns life sometimes takes, and ‘Talaash’ rings true, not as a mystery or a drama or any other genre but as a slice of the surreal nature of  real life.