Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Ahilya Bamroo, Jayant Kriplani, Johnny Lever, Janet Carter, Kristin Goddard
Director: Shoojit Sircar
This true story of a multiple cancer surgery survivor recently dropped on Amazon Prime Video among its latest Indian cinema offerings.
Arjun Sen (Bachchan) is a self-assured Indian American marketing man who is confident in his ability to be able to sell any product with the right kind of packaging for his target consumer. While some find his technique manipulative, Arjun has no such qualms as he smooth-talks his way out of any marketing conundrum.
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When a sudden coughing fit during one such dazzling client pitch derails his high-flying career, his main concern is for his teenage daughter Reya (Bamroo) – whose custody he shares with his estranged ex-wife. After an initial phase of denial, Arjun is determined to tackle his cancer diagnosis head-on – with the help of graphs and charts that he is familiar with as a marketing man.
On this mission he finds an initially hesitant accomplice in his surgeon Dr Deb (Kriplani), who can’t help but be taken in by this garrulous patient’s sheer determination to beat his aggressive cancer. Even as different organs of his body are cut up and plastered, Arjun displays a stoic exterior to ensure Reya is not unduly alarmed. But the result is that his daughter begins to question the veracity of his health struggles. Will this father-daughter duo make it through the serial surgeries, or will Arjun’s speedily spreading cancer win the fight after all?
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This film starts on a promising note but never quite gets to grips with the intense subject matter it has chosen to tackle. Abhishek Bachchan is convincing enough as the over-confident marketing man battling the impossible, but he is let down by some sloppy editing. There are characters in there, such as the comedian Johnny Lever, whose role in his life is never fully explained. There are scenes showing Arjun making video recordings of his surgeries for his daughter, but these are left hanging too.
The end result is a bit of a missed opportunity to strike a chord with the right emotional notes to tell the story of a real-life cancer survivor, who we meet in the last frame.
