Uunchai is one tight hug of a film

As a non-fan of Sooraj Barjatya’s school saccharine cinema, it gives me great pleasure to say that Uunchai is actually a very special film from his over sweetened oeuvre , unlike anything Barjatya has directed before. It is certainly a U-turn as compared with his family films Hum…Aapke Hain Koun and its fluffy follow-up Hum…Saath Saath Hain, where the joint family danced and ate so much that I feared for their knees .

_Unnchai_ had me going down on my knees with gratitude. If not a flawless portrait of the life of a bunch of sexagenarian buddies, it at least gets right the groundrules of living beyond youth. These oldies are not quite the vintage versions of autumn-going-on-winter individuals that we expect in mature mellow movie about growing old with dignity.But at least they seem more than props on a gaudy set.

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The writing is embarrassingly creaky at times. The very thought of 65-70-year-olds throwing public tantrums is distasteful. But then the actors seem to have come to terms with their characters’ blind spots. The beauty of Uunchai is that it goes along with the characters’ blemishes, and lets the accomplished actors take charge of their characters’ inner demons.

Sadly we don’t see them wrestling much with those demons. Sublimity has never been a problem with Barjatya. Superficiality has.

Barjatya has always been petrified of deep-diving into his characters’ innerworld. He is that swimmer with the best underwater gear who prefers to sit on the shore rather than go down. Here too in Uunchai , in spite of its charming refreshing peep into a world beyond the cosmetic sets and papier-mache props, there is a lack of studied motivation that drives the aging characters into a trip to the tip of the Himalayas.

Barjatya seems unsure whether he wants to a make road movie or a coming-of-age melodrama. He settles for a bit of both, with not unpleasant endresults. Uunchai is very often charming and heartwarming. Though the verbal exchanges among the four friends sound like Anil Kapoor and Anupam Kher bantering at an awards function, the plot’s triggering point—the death of a dear friend Bhupen played with beguiling affability by Danny Denzongpa –prompts the other three friends to explore their own life more closely.

Thankfully, they don’t decide to mend their ways, at least not right away. Instead they take off on a trek to the Himalayas to fulfil Bhupen’s dying wish. The writing by Abhishek Dixit allows the characters to breathe the fresh Himalayan air even when the drama is choked with over-the-top emotions.

All three principal actors Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher and Boman Irani give their best shots to what could easily have become one-dimensional characters: Bachchan the selfabsorbed bestselling writer,Kher the cranky childlike old-world Uncleji who clings to his old bookstore while his practical son wants to sell out, and Irani, the devoted but flirtatious husband.

Delightfully, though this is the men’s story, the three women characters played by Sarika, Neena Gupta and Parineeti Chopra get decent space, like men giving their seats to a woman in a bus just to look chivalrous. The visuals as shot by cinematographer by Manoj Kumar Khatoi are a feast to the eyes.

For those who may miss Barjatya’s patented preoccupations, there is plenty of food consumption as the camera takes us through various cities in Uttar Pradesh before heading for the Himalayas. And if you stick around till the end for the end-credits there is even an antakshari game.

For all its shortcomings, never fatal flaws, Uunchai is leaps and bounds ahead of the other films that are smogging the silver screen these days. This one has a pure heart. It is tender and sweet but not cloying like Sooraj Barjatya’s other films. And no, Salman Khan doesn’t show up anywhere, not even as a tourist guide at the Himalayas.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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