Udaan is a story about modern middle class India. A young man is expelled from his private school after having broken the curfew rules. He is sent back to his father who he has not seen in years. His father is a harsh man who vows to whip his son into shape, not matter what it takes. And there will be no talk of becoming a writer or any of that other hippie swill.
It's a story about changing cultural landscape. No longer are boys blindly following their fathers into their professions. Young people are increasingly global, capable of dreaming outside the limited boundaries of their small towns, their immediate family. Naturally this creates a lot of friction and this movie is a case study of one of those instances where the friction turns nasty.
That being said, the one major problem I had with this film was that none of the main characters were at all likable. They all had major flaws in their characters, which made them hardly relatable. You're supposed to hate the father, that much is clear, but in his case, the abusiveness is so over the top and cruel that it becomes cartoonish.
The big problem is the main character. He's a lazy jerk who believes himself entitled to something more. Sure, it's the plot that he wants to become something more than just another factory worker, but the way he goes about achieving that goal - or rather, the way he doesn't - feels alienating. It's realistic that people get stuck in a groove, but it doesn't make for a sympathetic character.
Even the boy's uncle, easily the most jovial of the characters in the movie, suffers from crippling passivity.
Udaan talks about an important subject matter. I just wish it had found a more charismatic way of doing so. Now it's realistic in a way that creates a nasty itch under your skin.
It's a story about changing cultural landscape. No longer are boys blindly following their fathers into their professions. Young people are increasingly global, capable of dreaming outside the limited boundaries of their small towns, their immediate family. Naturally this creates a lot of friction and this movie is a case study of one of those instances where the friction turns nasty.
That being said, the one major problem I had with this film was that none of the main characters were at all likable. They all had major flaws in their characters, which made them hardly relatable. You're supposed to hate the father, that much is clear, but in his case, the abusiveness is so over the top and cruel that it becomes cartoonish.
The big problem is the main character. He's a lazy jerk who believes himself entitled to something more. Sure, it's the plot that he wants to become something more than just another factory worker, but the way he goes about achieving that goal - or rather, the way he doesn't - feels alienating. It's realistic that people get stuck in a groove, but it doesn't make for a sympathetic character.
Even the boy's uncle, easily the most jovial of the characters in the movie, suffers from crippling passivity.
Udaan talks about an important subject matter. I just wish it had found a more charismatic way of doing so. Now it's realistic in a way that creates a nasty itch under your skin.