As the world and its aunt know by now, Nishabd is the love story of a 60 year old man and an 18 year old. And when the 60 year old in question is the Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, you can just imagine the chatter!! So does this socially uncomfortable theme leave us Nishabd?
Nishabd’s tagline is that some love stories are never meant to be understood – well, that is rather honest of Ram Gopal Varma, because this rather tedious love story is not something you want to particularly understand or appreciate! And that may have something to do with the basis of the attraction.
Jiah is projected as this free spirited child woman that Bachchan’s character just can’t help being attracted to. Someone who stirs up his placid existence, making him hanker for a youth gone past. Fair enough, but Jiah only manages to come across as a bit of a badly behaved basketcase, who has severe discipline issues. She also punctuates each sentence with the expression “take light”, which presumably means “take it easy”. Most annoying! And if the point of the exercise was to show the attraction as rather inexplicable, it is working! Then you have Mr. Bachchan’s ponderous monologues to camera about how the attraction was not really physical — and then Varma ensures every frame of the film has some part of Jiah’s legs or thighs played in the foreground, or top shots of his heroine sprawled on the ground with her legs spread slightly wide. Whatever happened to the man. who gave us the sensuality of ‘Rangeela’? This is border line sleaze!
It is left to Bachchan to add some dignity to the proceedings, which he does admirably well. This is a role and a film that he obviously believes in — and the belief shines through in his tortured portrayal of a man caught in an attraction that he just cannot help. However, given the weak chemistry, there’s not much empathy for either Jiah or his character. So you are tempted to dismiss the hopeless attraction as the selfish indulgence of an old man. If you are looking for the pathos of unfulfilled, unacceptable love — look somewhere else.
This is a flat, simplistic take on human relationships and the depiction especially of Revathy, Bachchan’s wife proves that Ramu really doesn’t understand women too well. Either they are scantily dressed temptresses or dowdy, drab housewives — boring, one dimensional characters!
The problem with Ram Gopal Varma these days is that he is coming up with gimmicks rather than concrete story ideas. His one point agenda is — what will grab attention? But you have to be able to go beyond that and if you can’t, the result is this rather simplistic take on what could have been a complex relationship. So two stars it is for Ramu — and a fervent hope that the man who gave us ‘Satya’ and ‘Company’, finds his form again. Till then, take light, Ramu!
(Reviewed by Naomi Datta. For more, tune in to E NOW Weekend, Saturday 9:30 pm & Sunday 5:30 pm)
Rating: 2/5
TimesNow TV
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