Aarakshan

The only well-realised role is Big B’s and the proficient actor could well be the only reason to watch the film—apart from a lovely Tanvi Azmi who plays his wife

Updated on: 7 February 2024 5:38 pm

Aarakshan

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Prateik Babbar, Deepika Padukone, Tanvi Azmi
Directed by Prakash Jha
Rating: **

Mainstream cinema has a way of simplifying the most complex of issues, but in that simplicity, it also manages to touch a chord, reach out and even initiate debate. Prakash Jha fails to do any of that with Aarakshan. The film begins by dealing with one of the most contentious and divisive subjects of our times: reservation. Not only does Jha play it safe by portraying it as a pro- and con- school-level debate, but midway through, he decides to abandon its subject by aligning with another issue, that of the commercialisation of education. His thrust is on how we should insitute an Indian Teachers’ Service (ITS)—like the IAS and IPS. Eventually, towards the end, he does try to clumsily tie the two thematic strands together but does justice to neither.

The heart of the problem, of course, is the confused and convoluted script. It takes way too long, and many a happy family scene, to introduce the characters and set up the action. Saif Ali Khan is a Dalit fobbing off caste biases despite being educated and empowered. Big B is a conscientious principal of a college who believes in equality for all. The Mandal issue divides the students of the college and eventually Big B is eased out of the institute, which then gets taken over by the ‘evil’ Manoj Bajpai who, as a character points out, has taken Saraswati to the stockmarket and turned education into a multi-crore business with his private coaching institutes.

It’s not just the script that lets the film down. Aarakshan is also tackily mounted, the most tension-filled scenes play out flat and even an actor of the calibre of Bajpai is made to ham outrageously. Khan thinks being intense implies talking in whispers and sporting a laconic look and Prateik Babbar is uncomfortable even when he is on the periphery of a frame. Part of the problem is that the actors don’t essay rounded characters but half-baked caricatures. The only well-realised role is Big B’s and the proficient actor could well be the only reason to watch the film—apart from a lovely Tanvi Azmi who plays his wife and a beautifully grey and graceful Hema Malini who enters the acting frames only at the fag end, after being a photo on the wall for the movie’s entirety.

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