At 60, you know you are not going ahead but returning. Only one among four is not diabetic. One has lost his wife to life, another to death. The three we are dealing with have also lost a friend.
The challenges are so different from when you are at the illusory halfway mark as we conveniently give it the numerical with a hundred for a denominator. Life throws challenges and limits you with physical ailments and societal mindsets.
Procrastination is failure, for tomorrow could well lose itself to the fatal imperative.
It is a clear shift in stance and space for family entertainer Sooraj Barjatya. The man who made a craft out of happy families without having to take them in their chiffons and sweaters to ice-clad mountains now takes the audience to the ice-clad Himalayas. Not in romance as in celebrating the human spirit of friendship and adventure.
We will quickly have a look at the story, which, in the context of our grammar, is imperative for a film. Javed (Boman Irani) who runs a women’s garment shop and has romance in his mind and action, his friend Om Sharma (Anupam Kher) who is a widower, are readying to meet friend Amit Srivatsav (Amitabh Bachchan), a successful writer, and attend the birthday party of Bhupen (Danny).
The group slips into a tragedy when Bhupen succumbs to a heart attack with a passion unfulfilled: To make a trip to the base camp of Mount Everest in Nepal. While Amit decides that the best way to pay homage is to make the trip, the other two are hesitant and cynical.
The first challenge is to hoodwink the hawk-eyed wife of Javed Shaboo (Neena Gupta). The challenge is to keep up the spirit of the trio and more so when they unwittingly become part of a trekking group headed by Shradha (Parineeti). Joining them is Mala (Sarika) who part-gatecrashes and imposes herself in suspicious circumstances to be part of the group.
How they survive mood swings, health challenges, physical deficiencies and emotive high-octave moments and prove that man will not only endure but overcome is a salute to the human spirit and an ode to friendship.
Unlike his body of work dipped in sugar syrup, Sooraj Barjatya treks the hilly pathway to the Himalayas. Right from the ‘Ketiko-Ketiko’ number to the ‘Woh Ladki Pahadi’ in the climax, his music (Amit Trivedi) is on a wholly different tangent. His poignant story of three sexagenarians (Amitabh Bachchan, Boman Irani and Anupam Kher) takes you first on a road trip to Kanpur, to Gorakhpur and then to Nepal. More importantly, chug you on an emotive trip with the not-so-preachy but fizz-filled ’Zindagi ko han kehde’ spirit.
It is refreshing to see Sooraj Bharjatiya walk out of the traditional hunky-dory family space that he came to occupy from ‘Mein Ne Pyar Kiya’ to ‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ and yet stay within the broad parameters of commercial cinema. In fact, at one stage, the director’s dilemma from a career perspective is voiced by Om when he says: Why does everything change? Nature, character. Why can’t things stay constant?
In short, the film is studded with moments of cinematic grandeur and emotive appliques. The Sarika story; the Parineeti birthday; the post-football Amitabh Bachchan; the warning from Neena: asap ‘Dost ho apne hadh thak apna hak ko rakhiye’ are each a gem in themselves.
Sarika, Neena Gupta and Parineeti Chopra survive a male-dominated script and leave a stamp of gloss. It needs something for Parineeti to be noticed in the midst of such calibre. Boman Irani is another class act. The transformation of Big B from a successful author to a failed human being highlighted by his swan song to Instagram tells you why he will always be considered, to be the best that we have had or will be.
Brilliant cinematography by Manoj Kumar Khatoi, sometimes marred by George Joseph’s over-the-top background score, tells the story by itself.
It’s encouraging to see huge footfalls. This Uunchai beckons lovers of good cinema.
