Review of Guzaarish

GUZAARISH Once again, and after a long time according to my standards, we got an opportunity to be amongst the first few to have watched the first public screening of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's newest venture, GUZAARISH. And two hours later, when I came out of the theatre with a lump in the throat, I couldn't but marvel at this outstanding creation on celluloid. Co-produced by UTV along with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, this clearly is Bhansali's best directorial effort till date. The theme is novel, at least in the Indian film scene and beautifully portrays a wide range of emotions. Love and caring; frustration and angst; helplessness and joy; anger and exhilaration are all presented with such finesse and perfection that it is difficult, well, nigh impossible to visualize as to how these emotions could have been better depicted on the screen. The other primary reason for the movie's powerful impact is that the ensembles of actors deliver their finest performances. Hritik Roshan, excels in his role of the magician performer turned quadriplegic and his eyes speak tomes of his inner feelings. Aishwarya Rai reveals that she can act, and wonderfully well, provided the script calls for it and if she has an able director to direct her efforts. The rest of the cast including the versatile Shernaz Patel, the debutante Aditya Roy Kapoor, the theatre personality Vijay Crishna (who is an Executive Director in one of the Godrej companies) and the graceful Nafisa Ali put in stellar performances. I will be most surprised if the cast members do not pick up more than a handful of awards. The music is also by Bhansali and while the few songs may not be chart busters, the background score is operatic in its expanse and adds to the mood of the various scenes. The dialogues are pithy and meaningful and couched in them are a number of philosophical statements. Bhansali's skill lies in making these not sound like drab monologues. I was reminded of the Hrishikesh Mukherjee directed and Amitabh-Rajesh Khanna starrer Anand whenever there were pathos tainted expressions of philosophy being mouthed on the screen. And just like it happened to me when I first saw Anand about three decades back, I was moved to tears in a few scenes; tears of a kind which do not cause uncontrollable sobbing, but which moisten one's eyes and leave you with a feeling of restrained, and quietly dignified expressions which speak louder than a thousand words. Bhansali's treatment of Euthanasia is without any melodrama whatsoever and this heightens the impact. Even the last scene is reminiscent of another Hrishikesh Mukerjee film: MILI; you know what is to follow, but still are left with the faint trickle of wishful optimism. Bhansali has proved that he can recover and recover well from his earlier blue themed disaster Saawariya, although the abundance of blue hues in a few scenes leave us with no doubt about the director's favourite color. Aishwarya looks stunning as well, and although her low cut dress is not what I have seen any nurse wearing, perhaps Bhansali intended it so as to provide some relief to the bed-chained hero! Ram Gopal Verma, who apparently has commented about his not liking her washing Hritik's hair needs to be reminded that Aishwarya looks more sensuous than all his pouting and pelvic thrusting heroines! Although GUZAARISH in the movie refers to the hero's deep desire to be freed from his state, it could also convey the GUZAARISH of every sick person to be nursed by a person like Aishwarya!!