This directorial debut by the "perfectionist" Aamir Khan carries the tag-line "Every Child is Special". Ishaan Avasthi, an 8 year-old, is a dreamer and dreams best in class. He is repeating 3rd grade and under-performing by a lot. He has a superstar sibling who aces all his tests and badminton. Ishaan is ridiculed by his teachers and classmates, berated by his ambitious father and pushed along by his harried mother. One day he bunks school and is packed off to an expensive boarding school, but things are no better for him there. He has but one friend, and the teachers continue to be tartars and caricatures - until a colorful sensitive substitute art teacher, Mr. Nikumbh, arrives and sees that Ishaan is locked up in his inward looking universe. Nikumbh is dyslexic and immediately knows that Ishaan too is suffering from dyslexia. He champions Ishaan's cause most vociferously this includes telling the class that dyslexics can be geniuses like Einstein, DaVinci, Abhishek Bachchan (???). Ishaan builds a most DaVinci like transport vehicle model out of twigs and knick-knacks he collects, begins to learn letters from Mr. Nikumbh, and eventually to READ. Then there is an art competition in which we see how fun filled and normal the teachers and kids really are, we see Ishaan winning and becoming the hero of the school and his parents. The movie ends with Ishaan running back in slow motion towards Nikumbh!! To call this well-intentioned fare bland would be unkind, after all it deals with learning disabilities and the message that parents need to love their kids no matter what, and kids need love to develop a sense of self worth. The film delivers the message in a fairly decent way that is several notches above public service messages. What is most likable is the protagonist Ishaan, played very well by Darsheel Safary. His buck toothed smile is used most effectively (not unlike the use of Michelle's wide eyes and duck walk in Black). Aamir plays Nikumbh in a preachy way that ranges from weeping at the drop of a hat to thunderous speeches delivered to the parents. Tisca Chopra is good as the harried and browbeaten mother. The father and all the other people associated with the educational system are caricatured to the maximum - they do help generate a lot of sympathy for Ishaan, but also some for the teaching profession that has been uniformly vilified here. The message gets muddled by Ishaan's winning the art competition was it not that every child is special whether he has something special in him or not? Special schools are not spared either and branded as schools for retarded children. Again this is a less than desirable message about such schools that can focus expert teachers around kids that need them.
The film does touch the child within all of us that same child who did most of his thinking while sitting on the potty, spent time day dreaming about being Spaceman Spiff, did not care much about studies, and was sometimes sent out of class for me it was with my desk and chair, for an entire day!! The music is excellent, and 'Maa' is heartrending. The art competition sequence is very well staged. But in the end one is less than satisfied with this story that has lots of black and white, but no shadows or nuances to many of the characters. We are not told much about Nikumbh (or any other character except the protagonist) and there is no enigma to him to make us care to know more. Overall this movie is a decent effort, well intentioned and exceptionally well shot in parts.
The film does touch the child within all of us that same child who did most of his thinking while sitting on the potty, spent time day dreaming about being Spaceman Spiff, did not care much about studies, and was sometimes sent out of class for me it was with my desk and chair, for an entire day!! The music is excellent, and 'Maa' is heartrending. The art competition sequence is very well staged. But in the end one is less than satisfied with this story that has lots of black and white, but no shadows or nuances to many of the characters. We are not told much about Nikumbh (or any other character except the protagonist) and there is no enigma to him to make us care to know more. Overall this movie is a decent effort, well intentioned and exceptionally well shot in parts.