Shararat (2002)
Cast: Abhishek Bahchchan, Hrishtaa Bhatt, Amrish Puri, Helen
Director: Guru Dev Bhalla
Music Director: -------
Synopsis: A film from a time warp with some old world charm due to its cast of crinklies
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

Shararat lay unsold for more than a year before finally reaching cinemas, apparently released in anticipation of an improvement in Abhishek Bachchan’s fortunes following Om Jai Jagdish. Unfortunately, that film had already collapsed at the box office, and Shararat was hardly likely to reverse the trend.

Which is a pity, because the film itself is not entirely without merit.

Rahul (Abhishek Bachchan) is a wealthy and thoroughly indulged brat whose parents have allowed him to grow up without the slightest sense of responsibility. During one of his escapades with his cronies, cruising around in a gigantic multicoloured American car, he switches off the traffic lights at a busy junction. The result resembles a dodgem-car arena, with vehicles crashing into one another in every direction.

For this spectacular act of stupidity, Rahul is sentenced to community service at an old people’s home, where it is hoped that exposure to those less fortunate than himself will transform him into a caring and responsible human being.

Into the proceedings arrives Neha (Hrishitaa Bhatt), an investigative reporter eager to document the “reformation” of this spoilt young man.

Unfortunately, very little reformation takes place for much of the film.

Instead, the narrative drifts between the various residents of the home, each carrying a sad story of abandonment by families who no longer want the inconvenience of caring for them. They sing, dance, argue and mourn the circumstances that have brought them there, while Rahul remains largely on the outside looking in.

Presiding over the institution is a seemingly saintly lawyer played by Mohnish Bahl, so impossibly sweet and benevolent that one immediately suspects he must be the hidden villain of the piece.

How Rahul eventually develops a conscience and becomes involved in the lives of the elderly residents forms the basic thrust of the story.

The film does raise worthwhile issues and occasionally becomes affecting because of them. The abandonment of elderly parents by their children is a subject that could have produced a moving and relevant drama. There is the germ here of the kind of humane family film that someone like Hrishikesh Mukherjee might once have made with warmth, humour and genuine emotional depth.

Director Gurudev Bhalla has a perfectly respectable idea.

He simply fails to execute it convincingly.

The greatest flaw is the character of Rahul himself. He begins as a careless but largely harmless brat and remains curiously unaffected for far too long. There is no gradual awakening, no convincing sense that his contact with the residents is changing him from within. His eventual transformation arrives because the screenplay requires it rather than because the audience has witnessed it develop.

This is no Dushman, the Rajesh Khanna–Meena Kumari drama in which a drunken truck driver is forced to live with the family of the man he has killed and slowly comes to understand the consequences of his actions. That film built its drama around guilt, responsibility and atonement. Shararat lacks anything approaching that emotional force.

Rahul is not truly driving the story. He merely wanders through it.

With such a weak protagonist, the film becomes dependent upon its supporting characters, and it is Amrish Puri who ultimately emerges as the emotional hero.

Abhishek Bachchan has very little of substance to work with, but he also fails to bring much feeling or sensitivity to the role. One might barely notice his presence were it not for the fact that he receives top billing. Rahul should have been the emotional centre of the film, yet Abhishek never generates the empathy required to make his journey matter.

Hrishitaa Bhatt makes even less of an impression than she did in Asoka. This is hardly the launch vehicle she might have hoped for.

The supporting cast is packed with veterans including Daisy Irani, Shobha Khote, A.K. Hangal, Viju Khote and Dara Singh. They bring a warmth and familiarity that the film desperately needs, and there are moments when the director succeeds in making us feel for their loneliness and sense of abandonment. Amrish Puri and Helen are particularly effective, lending genuine pathos to roles that might otherwise have become caricatures.

Unfortunately, whatever charm the elderly cast generates is repeatedly interrupted by dull songs and an entirely unconvincing romantic track. The love story feels imposed upon the film merely because a young hero and heroine must apparently be paired together, whether the narrative requires it or not.

Shararat could have been a warm, funny and moving film about a selfish young man discovering humanity among people discarded by their own families. Instead, the very character whose transformation should form the backbone of the story remains its least interesting element.

The old-timers provide the film with its only real life.

As for Abhishek, on the evidence of this effort, he still had a very long road ahead of him.