{"id":707,"date":"2007-12-25T22:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-25T22:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2007\/12\/review-taare-zameen-par-2.html"},"modified":"2011-06-13T02:40:19","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T02:40:19","slug":"review-taare-zameen-par-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2007\/12\/review-taare-zameen-par-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Review : Taare zameen par"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note : The edited version of this review appears at Planet Bollywood, <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"tzp\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/em>Rating : Above average (3.8\/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2007
Running time : 2 hours 45 minutes
Director\/Producer : Amir Khan
Cast : Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary, Tanay Cheda, Tisca Chopra, Sachet Engineer, Vipin Sharma
Music : Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Writer : Amole Gupte
Lyrics : Prasoon Joshi<\/p>\n

TAARE ZAMEEN PAR (TZP) : WINSOME WEEPIE
<\/em><\/strong>
Ishaan Awasthi (Darsheel Safary) is your average 8 year old. Or not. He is mischevious, naughty and given to pranks that you\u2019d think were normal for his age. He loves to paint, and express himself. But at school, he has difficulty concentrating on his work and taking directions. And when the teacher asks him to read, he can\u2019t . Why ? Because, says he, \u201cthe letters are dancing\u201d. Smartass ? No. Dyslexic ? Yes.<\/p>\n

The film is about a little boy, who\u2019s a little different from all the other little boys. Only the rest of the world can\u2019t see his troubles, terming them \u201cattitude\u201d problems, or laziness. Even his parents, especially his dad (Vipin Sharma) won\u2019t sympathize, packing him off to boarding school where \u201cthey\u2019ve tamed wilder horses\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dyslexia is little recognized, I\u2019d imagine, in an atmosphere where competition is severe, and tomorrow\u2019s success depends on high scores in class today. We all must be toppers, so where is the space for little buck-toothed Ishaan ? Ishaan\u2019s elder brother Yohan (Sachet Engineer) is your average super-accomplished kid, excelling in studies and sports. Thus his parents are doubly disappointed in Ishaan\u2019s red-inked classwork, oft-repeated mistakes, and frequent complaints from school. Ishaan is lost in an internal world of misery, until an astute and empathetic teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh (Aamir) recognizes the symptoms and helps him out.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s story is simple; it\u2019s about Ishaan and Nikumbh, one helping the other. The film starts off depicting Ishaan\u2019 problems in day-to-day life, and moves slowly \u2013 one wished for crisper editing. While the subject of the story would require a slower pace, and the need to delve into details, smarter editing might have prevented the movie dragging in the beginning. The film features some very interesting graphics and animation sequences; the letters which Ishaan claims are dancing, \u201cactually\u201d dance off the screen, the spiders that Ishaan imagines his books to be actually crawl out to threaten Ishaan. We get a glimpse into Ishaan\u2019t creativity, by seeing the adventures in his mind\u2019s eye, and his talent in choosing bright, vibrant colors in his artwork is depicted by moving, swishing colors.<\/p>\n

Safary is a very good actor for his age, so I found Ishaan\u2019s character believable, and I felt for him. Aamir\u2019s role as Nikumbh starts pretty much after the interval, and although it was finely done, I found Nikumbh a little too smug in his righteousness. Aamir portrays Nikumbh with a self-consciousness \u2013 the self-consciousness of a person who knows how \u201cgood\u201d he is being, and that takes away some of the emotional connection for me. I mean, I know he\u2019s a good guy and all, and he\u2019s the only one who\u2019s really helping Ishaan. But taken just by himself, and without the sympathetic support from Darsheel\u2019s character I\u2019m not sure I felt as much for Nikumbh \u2013 he was too surely seated on his moral high horse. Still, he\u2019s managed some heart-warming scenes with little Darsheel \u2013 scenes which left me mopping my eyes.<\/p>\n

Ishaan\u2019s parents\u2019 story wasn\u2019t every well-developed I thought \u2013 they kind of disappeared after Ishaan went off to boarding school, only reappearing as uncaring foils to Nikumbh\u2019s super-sensitive soul. Seemed a little contrived in Nikumbh\u2019s favor. Ishaan\u2019s Dad is depicted as a stick-in-the-mud authoritarian, and in the face of Nikumbh\u2019s persuasion, very resistant to the idea of Ishaan\u2019s being dyslexic, viewing it as akin to retardation. Vipin Sharma as Awasthi appears angry and a little over the top, and anal, which he is, I suppose. He isn\u2019t very subtle, that\u2019s for sure. His mother Maya (Tisca Chopra), acts pretty well. Still, she who feels the most for him, lets him be carted away to boarding-school, which I found hard to swallow, since her character appears to care very much. Would even reasonably competent parents sit back complacently even after knowledge of a possible condition like dyslexia ?<\/p>\n

TZP features some very nice songs, beautifully worded. For a first film, Aamir directs well, although he could have tightened the pace a bit. The dialogues are apt; my children were fairly amused by all the talk among the kids in the film. There are very few desi movies tailored to kiddie audiences, and even fewer still which deal with topics like dyslexia. Just by that factor alone, TZP earns a few brownie points. It would have earned more had it been a little more subtle, and sophisticated. So, although I\u2019m not absolutely floored by it, it\u2019s still a good film. And it has it\u2019s heart in the right place. It\u2019s earnest, and it tries to do the right thing \u2013 a weepie worth the watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note : The edited version of this review appears at Planet Bollywood, here. Rating : Above average (3.8\/5)Genre : DramaYear : 2007Running time : 2 hours 45 minutesDirector\/Producer : Amir KhanCast : Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary, Tanay Cheda, Tisca Chopra, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51,76,14,10,17,15,160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-51","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-family-friendly","category-rating-g","category-recommended","category-social-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":7,"uagb_excerpt":"Note : The edited version of this review appears at Planet Bollywood, here. Rating : Above average (3.8\/5)Genre : DramaYear : 2007Running time : 2 hours 45 minutesDirector\/Producer : Amir KhanCast : Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary, Tanay Cheda, Tisca Chopra, … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-bp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1892,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}