Sitaare Zameen Par, Review: Lots of sympathy, very little empathy

Sitaare Zameen Par, Review: Lots of sympathy, very little empathy

Aamir Khan has earned for himself the sobriquet of a crusader, or an actor with a conscience. Several of his films have dealt with social issues, as in Taare Zameen Par (autism) and PK (an alien who helps earthlings to battle social evils), or cricket+revolt against British imperialism of yore (Lagaan). He also hosted a TV show, wherein he tried to get justice for sufferers of societal victimisation and injustice. So, making a film about differently abled and challenged persons is a logical step forward in his mission, if I may classify his forays above, as such. In Sitaare Zameen Par, which means exactly the same as Taare Zameen Par (Taare and Sitaare are interchangeable in Hindustani, both meaning Stars on Earth), the spiritual sequel to Taare Zameen Par, he chooses to focus on persons afflicted with differing conditions, Down’s syndrome and Autism being two of them. He has to train a bunch of affected individuals as basketball players, and don the role of their basketball coach. We have seen other actors, including ShahRukh Khan, play coaches to sport teams, and lead them, from being underdogs to champions. So the platform is not innovative. And if we look at the net result of this effort, Sitaare Zameen Par generates a lot of sympathy, but very little empathy.

In New Delhi, an arrogant, opinionated and ill-tempered assistant basketball coach, Gulshan Arora, gives unwanted and unwelcome advice to his senior coach during a match, repeatedly. The coach castigates him and asks him to shut-up. Gulshan punches him in the face. Later, he gets drunk and drives his car himself, breaking another car’s rear-view mirror, and even causing damage to a police car, that sets out to stop him. Somehow, the coach is persuaded not to file a case against Gulshan, although Gulshan cannot escape suspension. But in the matter of the dual car banging, he is put on trial. Although he is condescending and egotistic, the judge, a woman, is considerate, because he is a coach, and has no previous criminal record. She sentences him to three months of community service, which entails coaching a basketball team, comprising mentally challenged players. Gulshan finds the sentence ridiculous and refuses to coach “mad people”, but is prevailed upon by his family and well-wishers to accept the sentence, for otherwise, it would mean heavy fines, or jail, or both. The judge fines him Rs. 10,000, for disrespecting the dignity of the court, and, he accepts the service sentence, reluctantly.

When he arrives at the community service centre where the coaching is to take place, he is met by Kartar Singh, the manager of the place. Kartar is a charming man and uses earthy metaphors to explain complicated things, like the under-developed brains of his wards. When Gulshan sees the players for the first time, he is shocked by their appearances, angry at their behaviour, which is due to their “not normal” manifestations and angry at their brat like antics. But, over time, with the guidance of Kartar Singh, he manages to gradually overcome his prejudices. He also learns that one of the members of his team, the tallest, is a nephew of the judge who sentenced him, and perhaps this was one factor in awarding him the sentence. Co-incidentally, Gulshan is short in height, touching 5’ 6”, about the same as the average height of the players. Meanwhile, his marriage is on the rocks, and he lives separately, from his wife Suneeta, staying with his mother. The main reason for the incompatibility is the self-centred nature of Gulshan, and his unwillingness to father a child. Within a matter of weeks, Gulshan manages to bring out the best in the basketball team. Kartar wants them to participate in tournaments, which is a daunting task for Gulshan, but he takes it on.

What a laudable cause! A dozen or so men and a woman, persons afflicted with various neuro-divergent ailments, causing stunted development, befriended, appreciated and won over by a coach, turning into a basketball team to contend with! But why basketball, which is not among the most popular sports in India? Did they pick-up an American story? Indeed, they did. Writing credits say “Written by Divy Nidhi Sharma, Based on Champions, by Javier Fesser”. Fesser (Javier Fesser Pérez de Petinto) is a Spanish film-maker who wrote, directed and edited the film Champions (Campeones), in 2018, of which Sitaare Zameen Par is an official remake. The Indian adaptation is by Sharma, who was one of the writers on the successful Lapataa (Lost) Ladies (2023), which Aamir produced, and his wife, Kiran Rao, directed. Since I have not seen the Spanish original, I cannot conclude how different or similar the Hindustani version is, to the original.

Writing is in the problem-solution style. A problem comes-up, and a solution is found. Another problem comes-up, another solution is found. Burdening itself with too many irrelevant issues that are raised and resolved, the screenplay dilutes its impact. Gulshan is not only brash and arrogant, he is also claustrophobic (more precisely, ‘liftophobic’) because he was stuck in an elevator when he was a child. He is afraid of fathering a child, because he fears that he will abandon the baby, like his father abandoned him and his mother, when Gulshan was eight. In the era of Google and AI, an educated upper middle-class man of an undefined age (one might guess that he is 45 or so) seems completely unaware of differently-abled persons and makes no effort to research, and apply that research in his job. He has to depend on Kartar to learn a few home-truths.

Kartar is an ocean of knowledge, holding forth on chromosomes and genes, and using day-to-day, practical examples. To drive home the fact that ‘normal’ is a relative term, and that every person has his own ‘normal’, Kartar points out that he and Gulshan take differing amounts of sugar in their cups of tea. Going over the top, the XXL-sized Kartar gets up from his chair, and asks Gulshan to compare their respective buttocks, to show that their normals differ. Gulshan is so taken up with this allegory, he repeats the act, when he finds that the driver and the other passengers travelling in the public bus are hostile to fellow travellers, his band of basketballers, to the horror of the ‘normal’ passengers.

Making a comeback to Hindustani cinema is R.S. Prasanna. Prasanna made his debut in 2013, with a Tamil romantic comedy, Kalyana Samayal Saadham, a story about a man suffering from erectile dysfunction. Kalyana Samayal Saadham was adapted and remade in Hindi, in 2017, as Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, also directed by Prasanna. It was necessary to give the players some back-story, to explain their symptoms, and that is duly done. However, we hear about Gulshan’s past only from his mother, Preeto, who is at loggerheads with him, and, hold your breath, is having an ‘affair’ with a friend/tenant called Daulat, to the horror of Gulshan. There is no back-story about Suneeta at all, except awkward conversations with Gulshan, whom she married after a love affair. Both of them pontificate on the contrasting qualities and attributes of men and women wehen they become couples, often extrapolating their predicament with general views about love-marriages, with differences reaching a crescendo, only to end amicably.

Gulshan convinces Suneeta, an ex TV personality who now manages his mother’s boutique, to dress-up as a Police Inspector, and extort money from the exploitative employer of one of his players, to finance an air-trip of the team, to Mumbai for a tournament. She even agrees to procure a bus and drive it herself, to take the players to their required destinations. No attempt is made to explain the rules of the game, which is played by a miniscule section of the Indian population. Moreover, the opponent players in the matches that take place appear to be the normal 'normal'. Is this allowed? All this borders on the unbelievable and unimaginative. The end is unconventional, and welcome. However, the theme would really work only if it made the audience empathise with the underdogs. Instead, it merely succeeds in drawing sympathy, extracting laughter and plotting claptrap moments, like when it shows Golu Khan arriving with a surf-board when told that the team will be put up in a swanky hotel, in the hope that she will be able to surf on the swimming pool, or when it deals with the phobias of Gulshan and one of his team-members—Gulshan’s fear of using lifts, and the bulky player’s hydrophobia--and how they are gotten rid of, forever.

We have not seen Aamir struggle to act, and remain in character, very often. This is an exception. He is either glum, blank, casual or unconvincing, for the better part of the film. At 60, playing 45, he seems to have lost his magic touch. The star, who did not let his height, flappy ears and arched eyebrows come in the way of his consummate performances, seems jaded. Considering it is an Aamir Khan Production, this is a disappointment. Luckily, his charm sustains, and you are tempted to overlook the blemishes. Is age catching-up? Genelia Deshmukh, as Suneeta, is a greater disappointment. Her physique and looks change many times in the film, and she makes hard work of delivering her lines in high-flown Hindi, which might be the reason she is unable to emote or react well. In any case, she is not the right choice for the role. That she is 23 years younger than Aamir is beside the point.

A mosaic of too many characters, the film has Dolly Ahluwalia playing Preeto in style, Gurpal Singh as Kartar Singh, the sole person seen in the Community centre in the entire film, does full justice to his meaty role. Being a real-life Sardarjee must have helped. Brijendra Kala as Daulat continues to get roles that use his unconventional body structure and slurring speech to comedic effect. Deepraj Rana as Paswan, the Coach who undergoes a change of heart, is impressive. Jagbir Rathee as Karim's Boss, Sham Mashalkar as Rustom and Karim Hajee as Ashok Gupta are filler characters. Tarana Raja as the ambivalent Judge, Anupama Mandal, manages to retain dignity in a ‘caricaturish’ part.

It would be unfair to assess the acting abilities of the players, without knowing if any of them were really afflicted with their mental conditions, or are actors performing, so a general high five to Aroush Datta as Satbir, Gopi Krishnan Varma as Guddu, Vedant Sharmaa as Bantu, Naman Misra as Hargovind, Rishi Shahani as Sharmaji, Rishabh Jain as Raju, Ashish Pendse as Sunil Gupta, Samvit Desai as Karim Qureshi, Simran Mangeshkar as Golu Khan and Aayush Bhansali as Lotus. Naman has to remain poker-faced almost throughout the film, which is the death of any actor. Simran Mangeshkar is a scene stealer, what with her knees knocking rough opponents on the court at a place where it hurts most. It is not clear why only one of them is called by his surname, Sharmaji, while all the others are addressed by their first names.

Cinematography by G. Srinivas Reddy has to contend with fast-moving basketball moves and passes, best captured on his hand-held camera. Overall, his cinematography is on par. At 158 minutes, the film drags a bit, mainly due to many side-tracking narratives, which have to be spliced together by editor Charu Shree Roy. Most of the cuts are neither imaginative nor smooth. Music by Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy (songs) is well composed and comes with above par lyrics and singing. However, the film could do with at least one song less. Background score by Ram Sampath flows with the film, without being exceptional. The first frames of the film project a huge ‘a’, for Aamir’s Aamir Khan Productions. It lasts, quite unnecessarily, for an unduly long time, to remind you that he is still a force to contend with. He will have to come up with a much more creatively crafted film very soon to justify the faith is fans have in him.

Rating: **

Trailer: https://youtu.be/YH6k5weqwy8