Watching this was similar to opening my own 'dabba' a few times: expecting something simple+yummy inside but finding something really so-so inside! I have no idea why Amole Gupte had to be so slapsticky. The plot (especially the tiffin-raiding teacher and his revenge) is pulled so much as to resemble a chewed-up-devoid-of-any-sweetness-piece-of-chewing-gum. It's so totally contrived. Except for a few warm scenes, it was not a very filling and satisfying dabba. Thankfully the child actor is not so artificially precocious that you want to slap the living daylights out of him/her. I have yet to understand why India cannot find really good child actors a la Joel Osment, Dakota Fanning, Justin Henry (Cramer vs Cramer) et al. The level of overacting they are made/encouraged to do (or are pardoned for doing it) is astonishing. But that's generally true of most acting. It's sad that natural and understated acting of stalwarts such as Balraj Sahni, Vikram Gokhale etc never caught on. Most Bollywood acting is (and has been) garishly overdone and the serials take it to their abysmal worst! Anyways... this child actor (and cohorts) were much better than the crop you see in most films and that was heartwarming. Maybe we're learning that artificially deep breathing and displays of face contortions in every imaginable ways and obnoxious close-ups of them is not really good acting. This may sound too broad-brushed but just venting years of hating bad acting in Bollywood movies. There are of-course some gems. One of the best acting scenes I have ever seen anywhere on earth is Sanjiv Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri during their wedding scene in Koshish. My god! They are both deaf and mute and have no idea what commotion is going on around them. She just takes it in visually and he's lost in his own thoughts. Amazing acting!
Watching this was similar to opening my own 'dabba' a few times: expecting something simple+yummy inside but finding something really so-so inside! I have no idea why Amole Gupte had to be so slapsticky. The plot (especially the tiffin-raiding teacher and his revenge) is pulled so much as to resemble a chewed-up-devoid-of-any-sweetness-piece-of-chewing-gum. It's so totally contrived. Except for a few warm scenes, it was not a very filling and satisfying dabba. Thankfully the child actor is not so artificially precocious that you want to slap the living daylights out of him/her. I have yet to understand why India cannot find really good child actors a la Joel Osment, Dakota Fanning, Justin Henry (Cramer vs Cramer) et al. The level of overacting they are made/encouraged to do (or are pardoned for doing it) is astonishing. But that's generally true of most acting. It's sad that natural and understated acting of stalwarts such as Balraj Sahni, Vikram Gokhale etc never caught on. Most Bollywood acting is (and has been) garishly overdone and the serials take it to their abysmal worst! Anyways... this child actor (and cohorts) were much better than the crop you see in most films and that was heartwarming. Maybe we're learning that artificially deep breathing and displays of face contortions in every imaginable ways and obnoxious close-ups of them is not really good acting. This may sound too broad-brushed but just venting years of hating bad acting in Bollywood movies. There are of-course some gems. One of the best acting scenes I have ever seen anywhere on earth is Sanjiv Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri during their wedding scene in Koshish. My god! They are both deaf and mute and have no idea what commotion is going on around them. She just takes it in visually and he's lost in his own thoughts. Amazing acting!