It’s quite often that we have dreamt of living our childhood again. To go back to those good old school days. To play pranks on our friends, to play cricket, to spend hours in front of TV playing games! “Paa” takes you to a two-and-a-half hour ride of experiencing those days. Paa is a simple story of relationships, emotions, love – told with innocence.
Cut to King Edward VII School, Lucknow, UP – a school that comes into an unexpected limelight after it organises an exhibition – “The Vision of India”. The school invites a young, dynamic and promising leader and MLA – Mr. Amol Arte [Abhishek Bachchan] as the chief guest for this event. The young leader selects the winning entry into the exhibition, and co-incidently the piece of art turns out to be by a 12-year old kid with a very genetically rare disease – “Progeria” that causes accelerated ageing [Amitabh Bachchan, Mind-blowing!] who lives with his unwed mother [Vidhya Balan] and grandmother [Arundhati Naag]. Thus Auro gets exposed to a sudden publicity and the media keeps on hitting the school gates hunting for “Auro”. All these events and series of incidents triggers a very rare bond of friendship between the diseased Auro and the young politician, as they start to converse through emails, chats and phone.
As the friendship grows, and Auro begins to discover that his MLA-friend is ready to fulfil his innocent and stubborn demands, he discovers another thing – the MLA is none other then his very own “Paa”, who did not want him to be born. With this, starts Auro’s quest to find his Paa again, and re-unite his Paa with his Maa. How Auro does it forms the rest of the story.
The story is quite simple, and told from the perspective of the innocent kid. The sub-plots of the story – the Abhishek – Vidhya love story and break up, is cut shot into a song and a few scenes. Understandably, the motive was not to deviate too much from the main plot. The other sub-plot, Abhishek’s political life and his struggles with the opposition and media is also very well handled (with a message to the media too), that may remind you of the Anil Kapoor's super hit – Nayak.
The songs are not a hindrance, and go well with the narrative. There are a few very well shot moments – like Auro’s entry is one of the best scenes of the film, wherein Auro heads on towards the stage with fright and anxiety on his face in the begining, but when he receives the prize, starts doing the monkey dance by looking at his friends. Director R. Balki's direction deserves a word of praise here.
The dialogues are very well written, with just the type of innocent questions that children ask. Music by the south maestro – Illayaraja also builds up the mood and essence of the story.
On acting front, Vidhya Balan does well as the mother of the diseased child, who moulds herself the way her child wants. Abhishek Bachchan role, very much inspired by Rahul Gandhi of the real world. A young and dynamic leader, who dreams of making politics a better place, and who goes on to the slums and meets the people to hear their grievances. Abhishek is very sincere and accurate in his role.
But the real show-stealer is Amitabh Bachchan. This movie entirely belongs to him. The way he has jumped into the skin of Auro has no words of praise. The innocence, the mannerisms, the walking style, the voice, the facial expressions, the naughty chuckle with shrugging shoulders and hands covering his face – they all are too exact to guess it was a 65 year old man playing a 12 year old kid. Amitabh Bachchan has done a variety of roles and this is yet another feather (quite a big one) in his cap. He is a real maestro and a living legend of the acting world! He is simply stupendous.
On an ending note, Amitabh Bachchan is very lucky. Not because he is a super-star or that he is blessed with talent. But because, with Paa, he could relive his childhood again! I would term this movie as a must-see.
My Rating : *** 1/2
Cut to King Edward VII School, Lucknow, UP – a school that comes into an unexpected limelight after it organises an exhibition – “The Vision of India”. The school invites a young, dynamic and promising leader and MLA – Mr. Amol Arte [Abhishek Bachchan] as the chief guest for this event. The young leader selects the winning entry into the exhibition, and co-incidently the piece of art turns out to be by a 12-year old kid with a very genetically rare disease – “Progeria” that causes accelerated ageing [Amitabh Bachchan, Mind-blowing!] who lives with his unwed mother [Vidhya Balan] and grandmother [Arundhati Naag]. Thus Auro gets exposed to a sudden publicity and the media keeps on hitting the school gates hunting for “Auro”. All these events and series of incidents triggers a very rare bond of friendship between the diseased Auro and the young politician, as they start to converse through emails, chats and phone.
As the friendship grows, and Auro begins to discover that his MLA-friend is ready to fulfil his innocent and stubborn demands, he discovers another thing – the MLA is none other then his very own “Paa”, who did not want him to be born. With this, starts Auro’s quest to find his Paa again, and re-unite his Paa with his Maa. How Auro does it forms the rest of the story.
The story is quite simple, and told from the perspective of the innocent kid. The sub-plots of the story – the Abhishek – Vidhya love story and break up, is cut shot into a song and a few scenes. Understandably, the motive was not to deviate too much from the main plot. The other sub-plot, Abhishek’s political life and his struggles with the opposition and media is also very well handled (with a message to the media too), that may remind you of the Anil Kapoor's super hit – Nayak.
The songs are not a hindrance, and go well with the narrative. There are a few very well shot moments – like Auro’s entry is one of the best scenes of the film, wherein Auro heads on towards the stage with fright and anxiety on his face in the begining, but when he receives the prize, starts doing the monkey dance by looking at his friends. Director R. Balki's direction deserves a word of praise here.
The dialogues are very well written, with just the type of innocent questions that children ask. Music by the south maestro – Illayaraja also builds up the mood and essence of the story.
On acting front, Vidhya Balan does well as the mother of the diseased child, who moulds herself the way her child wants. Abhishek Bachchan role, very much inspired by Rahul Gandhi of the real world. A young and dynamic leader, who dreams of making politics a better place, and who goes on to the slums and meets the people to hear their grievances. Abhishek is very sincere and accurate in his role.
But the real show-stealer is Amitabh Bachchan. This movie entirely belongs to him. The way he has jumped into the skin of Auro has no words of praise. The innocence, the mannerisms, the walking style, the voice, the facial expressions, the naughty chuckle with shrugging shoulders and hands covering his face – they all are too exact to guess it was a 65 year old man playing a 12 year old kid. Amitabh Bachchan has done a variety of roles and this is yet another feather (quite a big one) in his cap. He is a real maestro and a living legend of the acting world! He is simply stupendous.
On an ending note, Amitabh Bachchan is very lucky. Not because he is a super-star or that he is blessed with talent. But because, with Paa, he could relive his childhood again! I would term this movie as a must-see.
My Rating : *** 1/2
