I Want to Talk is a biopic with a difference

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A marketing whiz NRI, Arjun Sen (Abhishek A. Bachchan) can even make customers believe that his client’s pizza is the only one worth consuming. He is a shade pompous and cocksure about everything, loves to the n-th degree to talk, and as an eccentric, he wants to have his own way. Though he has a cute daughter, Reya (Pearle Dey), he is divorced thanks to his overall persona, and can thus get to spend time with her only in alternate weeks on specific days.

And then, he is diagnosed with throat cancer that has also spread. In denial, he keeps this a secret from his daughter as well and threatens not to pay his doctors who give him less than 100 days to live. When the truth finally hits him in force, he even plans suicide. By that time, he has been medically recommended a helper named Nancy (Kristin Goddard) and she motivates him to live and undergo all the treatment that initially means losing all his hair and also many surgeries.

Bereft now of his job and home (which he leaves to his wife), he still owns a swanky Cadillac, and as his hair grows slowly, he keeps sending video messages to his daughter.

And then, the seeming absurdities begin. Arjun keeps having umpteen surgeries, manages to make a living, lives alone and seemingly thrivs on self-cooked junk food, makes friends with his prime doctor and looks and generally behaves like a normal and decently healthy man with a slight paunch. ]

The scene shifts to years later, when Reya is in her late teens and beyond, and the surgeries keep happening. So many parts of Arjun’s bodies have been removed, shortened or compromised, but he still attempts to run a marathon race.

Through all this, the pace is unhurried save for the jerks in time that keep happening suddenly. Midway, the audience in me became restive. The second half perked up, with some gentle and witty humor but the quantum of incredible things happening with Arjun increased. When Reya was a small kid, he had promised to dance at her wedding despite his condition. And now Reya is old enough to have a boyfriend Arjun is unhappy about and she is old enough to revolt against this unwarranted invasion of her freedom. And by now, she has realized what he has been fighting.

And then, just a few minutes before the climax comes the film’s huge revelation: the story is real, so are the names of the father and daughter, and a man who was given 100 days to live has now lived for over 10,000 days! Viewers get to meet the real Arjun Sen, still living a healthy life in 2024, who has stopped keeping count of his surgeries after the 20 shown or mentioned in the film!

The film, thus, becomes a biopic with a difference.

It is not clear how Arjun survived and still does. Maybe viewers can read his autobiography, or contact Shoojit Sircar, the director, whose close friend Arjun is, to know the story better. In the end, even more than the triumph of willpower, the film is a tribute to a man’s passions, for Arjun’s overriding fervor is his desire to talk, best illustrated when in one surgery, his throat will have to get incisions! The man’s penchant for marketing clearly also triumphs over medical science!

Director Shoojit Sircar, who directed the very successful and critically-extolled Vicky Donor and Piku and the highly-acclaimed Madras Café and Sardar Udham (Piku showed a father-daughter relationship that was fictional yet so gripping) besides the disastrous Gulabo Sitabo and the disappointing Yahaan and October, must introspect on what made the first two films work big time and the rest did not. Shoojit even co-wrote the successful Pink. If he must make movies in the mould of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee, he must note what the cinema-going audience (who could have a family outing to the movies then within Rs. 50 and must shell out a couple of thousands today!) empathizes with and endorses.

For the matter shown, the length could have been reduced from 122 to 100-plus, but even those needed a more consistent and involving narration. Unlike, say, an Anand, Mili or even the Marathi Shwaas, there was not a single moment here that truly touched the heart. Even the father-daughter bond was shown rather coldly, even when Reya was around 8. We could have done with more hugs, father-daughter endearments and other natural paternal and daughter-to-parent gestures even as Reya is shown growing up. It is difficult indeed to believe that the real Arjun and Reya were so unaffectionate!

The two songs (Taba Chake) are eminently forgettable and the background score (George Joseph and Koyna) average. The script uneven in pacing, despite the talented Ritesh Shah, who has shown that he can move from crime to drama so fluidly, being at the helm. Shoojit is a gifted director, but he is among the self-indulgent brigade that is overly concerned with form rather than keeping the audience in mind, unlike gifted names like Hrishikesh Mukherjee again or Nitesh Tiwari who primarily keep the audiences in mind even as they followed their own instincts and way of telling stories.

That said, I must say the obvious: Abhishek A. Bachchan towers! See him bald and then with growing hair, his unwieldy gait, his morose disposition and an unseemly paunch and compare his original marketing (over-)confidence with this and I reiterate my old prediction that the man is more versatile than a super-star who debuted in the same year as him! He is best when he is in suicidal mode (the long sequence that I do not want to describe as it would be a spoiler, being the highlight of the first half) or when he is nonplussed with his daughter’s demanding queries.

The supporting artistes are effectively led by Pearle Day as the young Reya and Ahilya Bamroo as the older one. Ahilya gets a better–delineated role and scores higher. Jayant Kripalani as the doctor hardly impresses. Johny Lever is wasted, though he is given a non-stereotypical role. Kristin Goddard makes a mark as the helper.

While the cinematography (Avik Mukhopadhyaya) is brilliant, the editing (Shekhar Prajapati) is generally too languid, but the production design (Mansi Dhruv Mehta) is impressive.

The film could have scored much higher, but thanks to the core idea and the meaty subject, emerges as decent, despite the plod in the first hour.

Rating: ***

Rising Sun Films’ & Kino Works’ I Want to Talk  Produced by: Ronnie Lahiri & Sheel Kumar Directed by: Shoojit Sircar  Written by: Arjun Sen & Ritesh Shah  Music: Taba Chake  Starring: Abhishek A. Bachchan, Pearle Dey, Ahilya Bamroo, Johny Lever, Kristin Goddard, Johny Lever & others