Movie Review: Aashayein

By Taran Adarsh, August 27, 2010 - 08:17 IST

Practically every new-age film-maker wants to attempt a real story on celluloid. Stories which are straight out of life/newspapers/news channels. These stories, generally, strike a chord with the ticket buying audience if narrated convincingly and most importantly, narrated within commercial parameters.

Nagesh Kukunoor has been a frontrunner as far as choosing and narrating real stories are concerned. AASHAYEIN too seems like 'our' story. Here's a man who suddenly discovers that he has a few months to live. The indomitable spirit of living life to the fullest, under all circumstances, is what you expect from him. But AASHAYEIN gets so bizarre and abstract that you feel anesthetized after a point. Sadly, you don't react to the characters, you don't react to the film either.

Write your own movie review of Aashayein Like Kukunoor's previous attempts, AASHAYEIN is sensitively told and has several poignant and heart wrenching moments, but the story strays from realism and ends up being a fantasy, which leaves a sour taste in your mouth. The entire RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK track, with John imagining himself in Harrison Ford's boots, is weird.

Final word? AASHAYEIN just doesn't meet the aashayein [hopes] of the viewer.

At a party to celebrate his big win at gambling, Rahul [John Abraham] proposes to his girlfriend Nafisa [Sonal Sehgal]. Within minutes of announcing his engagement, he collapses on the floor. After a medical diagnosis, Rahul discovers that he has only a few months left to live. He is diagnosed with lung cancer.

A distraught Rahul learns of a hospice and without sounding off his girlfriend about it, packs his bags and leaves in the middle of the night. He meets a number of people at the hospice, who may have failing health, but unfailing spirit.

For millions of viewers worldwide, Hrishikesh Mukherjee's classic ANAND [Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan] remains one of the best films on the matchless spirit of a person diagnosed with a terminal illness. The person in question [Rajesh Khanna] knows he doesn't have much time on hand and decides to spread light and cheer all around.

Though AASHAYEIN has nothing to do with ANAND [although there's a reference to the film], the least Kukunoor could've done was to narrate the story without getting into the fantasy zone. When you talk of matters as serious as death, when you show people spending their last days in a hospice, you can't deviate from the topic. Even the hospice here looks more like a small-town resort where people have come for a vacation. The seriousness is clearly missing!

On the brighter side, the sequences between John and Anaitha Nair are wonderful. Ditto between John and Farida Jalal. Salim-Sulaiman's music is in sync with the mood of the film. The song filmed on Shreyas Talpade is the pick of the lot. Sudeep Chatterjee's camera captures the outdoors well. But the writing is imprecise and like I pointed out at the outset, the culmination to this story is difficult to decipher.

Kukunoor is a master when it comes to extracting performances and AASHAYEIN also boasts of sparkling performances by each and every member of the cast. John puts a whitewash on his previous works and comes up with an honest and sincere performance. In fact, this film makes you forget that he's blessed with a striking personality. Instead, you notice the fine actor beneath the good looks and that's what makes you relate to this character for most parts.

Anaitha Nair is pure dynamite. Fiery, feisty, someone who can light fire in water. She's sure to make people notice her talent after this film. Sonal Sehgal is efficient. Girish Karnad, Farida Jalal and Prateeksha Lonkar are perfect. Ashwin Chitale [as Govinda] is natural to the core. Vikram Inamdar [as Xavier, John's friend] is alright. Sonali Sachdev [Doctor] is adequate. Shreyas Talpade appears in a song.

On the whole, AASHAYEIN falters and fails on the writing level. Not much aasha [hope] from AASHAYEIN. Nonetheless, the film has been made on a shoe-string budget and therefore, the recovery from non-theatrical avenues would keep its distributors safe, although the returns from theatrical business would be disastrous.

http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/review/13097/index.html

2 Stars

Aashayein is the kind of story that will possibly appeal to you as a fanciful fictional novel. But cinema calls for a different kind of sensibility. While the movie starts as a basic-level drama about a cancer patient's survival instincts much on the lines of films like Anand or Dasvidaniya , it switches genre to a fairytale fantasy in the second half with his whimsical pursuit to defeat death. In this merger of genres, it muddles up the message.

Soon after winning a big gamble Rahul (John Abraham) is detected of lung cancer and has only a few months to live. Ignoring all medical aid, he checks in a hospice without informing his girlfriend Nafisa (Sonal Sehgal). There he comes across other terminally ill inmates who haven't given up on life. He befriends many of them (Girish Karnad, Farida Jalal) and particularly strikes a warm relationship with Padma (Anaitha Nair).

From hereon the movie starts building castles in air (almost literally). Rahul meets a child Govinda (Ashwin Chitale) in the hospice who virtually enters his dreams and almost performs inception making a Harrison Ford of John Abraham. As Rahul daydreams of playing Indiana Jones from Raiders of the Lost Ark , the viewer gets lost in the flighty narrative. A supposed messenger of God, Govinda gifts him magical mangoes and encrypted messages. And through these cryptic clues Rahul finds a ray of hope for overpowering his impending end.

Some of the best works of Nagesh Kukunoor from Iqbal, Dor and Teen Deewarein were essentially about 'hope'. While the namesake Aashayein also endorses on not losing hope, the metaphorical treatment somewhere dilutes the essence. The film starts off very pragmatically but turns towards fantasy midways and appears corny at many instances. While the basic concept is not bad, the film would have been more interesting had the director opted for a conceptual thriller treatment. Adding to your anguish, Kukunoor plays safe by keeping hope hanging with an inconclusive end.

The length is another setback as the film stretches incessantly towards the climax. Considering that the concluding reels were significant for the plot, at least the intermediate portions could have been kept short. The problem is that the actual story of hope initiates rather late, only in the second half, when Govinda's half-baked character comes into picture. By then you have a different perception of the plot and the sudden change, rather than pleasantly surprising you, doesn't gel with your discernment. And then the narrative takes too long to explicate and establish its new ethereal concept of liberation.

Despite being about inciting hope, the film at times gets excruciatingly depressing through its frequent stints of bloody vomits and severe spasms resulting from the incurable ailments. And the very next moment it becomes sugar-sweet with an ideal hospice setting and its optimistic characters for a feel good effect. At the outset, the pessimistic Rahul's motivation to visit a shelter of hope (the hospice) doesn't appear convincing. His attempt to fulfill the final wishes of his hospice inmates is on the lines of Abhishek Bachchan's Sharaarat or Sanjay Dutt's Lagey Raho Munnabhai .

On the upside the bubbling bonding between John Abraham and Anaitha Nair has its lively moments. Their chemistry is spruced up with very rationally written lighthearted conversations. In fact Anaitha gets the best lines in the film and livens up the proceedings with her spirited performance. Her introduction sequence with John and the subsequent guided tour of the hospice that she gives him is hilarious and sets up the right rhythm for their cool camaraderie thereafter. The film also has this amazing ability of laughing on itself like when Rahul mentions how his first emotional outburst, when he learnt about cancer, was so filmi.

John, at best, puts a very earnest act and plays his part with conviction. Anaitha Nair (last seen in Chak De India ) is brilliant and one would love to see the actress more often on screen. For a change Farida Jalal doesn't do her motherly act. Sonal Sehgal and Girish Karnad are decent.

Aashayein might be having its heart in the right place but doesn't entirely appeal to the mind. Is that hoping for too much?

http://movies.indiatimes.com/reviews/bollywood/Aashayein-Movie-Review/articleshow/6439905.cms

Am glad John is being appreciated so far :)