Film Review: Sitaare Zameen Par [Stars on Earth]

As a spiritual sequel to the heart-warming tearjerker ‘Taare Zameen Par’, this new Bollywood offering out in cinemas now will be a major pull for fans out there waiting for an Aamir Khan release.

Gulshan Arora (Khan) may be vertically challenged but thanks to his firebrand mother Preeto’s (Ahluwalia) determination, he has overcome this shortcoming to make a mark for himself as a respected basketball coach. An outspoken tirade on the pitch during an important game and an estrangement from wife Sunita (Deshmukh) over their divergent dreams lead him towards seeking some solace in alcohol. However, a crash with a police van while driving under the influence (DUI) lands him in court, where the judge chooses to make use of his sporting talent over imprisonment.

Gulshan very reluctantly agrees to coach a team of intellectually challenged players, whom he misguidedly refers to as “mad”, as part of his community service sentence. As he gets to know each one of the players better with a little help from their carer Kartar Paaji (Singh), not only does his mindset undergo a shift but so does his outlook to life.

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Soon the wins begin notching up in the tournament that he is coaching these new recruits for and alongside, so does Coach Gulshan’s confidence in the ability of his players – whom he discovers are as “normal” as anyone. Will this team beat the odds to go on to lift the coveted trophy, or will they end up winning a much bigger battle?

On paper, this film had a lot going for it, not least that Aamir Khan is playing the lead as the flawed yet loveable father figure. However, where the film hits some avoidable roadblocks is in its repetitiveness to hammer in points about physical and intellectual disabilities. This hammering jars even more as there is very little insightful analysis offered into the stark differences between the myriad forms that such disabilities can take – from Down’s Syndrome to the spectrum of autism. The result is a missed opportunity to explore an important subject in all its hues.

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That said, the light-hearted touch is very welcome given the heavy subject matter, making this yet another commendable effort by the actor-filmmaker to back issues that rarely find a mainstream spotlight.