Aamir Khan must have a guts of steel to have made such a risky film for his debut as a director. Taare Zameen Par, a film about Children, but NOT a children’s film (from his blog). The subject matter is borderline documentary, but almost well woven into a film. Why almost? Read on…

In the first half is fantastic. The director’s attention to detail is amazing, be it interaction between characters (the way kid defies mom, dares his teacher, cajoles his bro, gets taunted by seniors/bullies) or the way the characters interact with their environment (kid swings away in iron gate, splashes every poodle, vandalizes neighbor’s potted plants) or the everyday scenes (punishment for shoe polish) - it faithfully recreates many of kids nightmares (signed leave letter, announcing marks in front of classmates, late school bus horn, nasty bus conductor, moms obsession with hygiene) and almost everything we (at least I) have done during our school days. Here a brat is shown unapologetically as a brat. No excuses. He is just a disobedient, lazy kid - almost like any one of us who got a rank from (25-50) in our class.

The second half is distinctively different - from natural it turns filmi. The Editor, Deepa Bhatia, should be send to Editor’s boarding school - she singlehandedly destroyed most of charm earned during first half and turned the climax into a bubblegum. By the end the movie drags on, adds unnecessary scenes (the kid is late to the Art Mela - why?!, and why make such a big hungama about his disappearance), unnecessary characters (Aamir’s lady friend, the old judge lady), filmi turnaround (zero->hero).  Looking back, they should have shaved off a good 30-45 mins off the movie, would have ended up with a crisp sharp movie, while still delivering their message. The music from ever dependable Shakar Ehasaan Roy is just ok, they could have done a lot better.

Despite the second half deficiencies, the movie does many things right - staring with fabulous performances (the kid, the father), a non condescending approach, world class animation (for an Indian film), true emotions, it even  manages to extract a tear or two and has many well done/clap-worthy scenes.

Aamir has effectively elevated himself from the rest of the Bollywood crowd with this film (which totally begs the question, with all his infinite wisdom, how did he agree to remake of the horrendous Tamil film - Ghajini)

Definitely worth a dekho… its a movie made with a lot of Dhill and Dil…

4/5