Paa Review

Try to find Amitabh Bachchan and you’ll end up scraping the nooks and crannies. What you’ll rather find is a progeric Bachcha, Auro - a funny, naughty preteen, all gnarled up because of his extremely rare disease that causes accelerated aging in children.

At 67, when most actors hang their boots to rest and reflect on their laurels, Big B takes a giant leap backwards to step into the shoes of the 12-year-old Auro; the transformation achieved with much more than just the layers of prosthetic make-up which, while giving an actor a completely new makeover, restricts his or her range of facial expressions. But Big B proves that not for nothing was he once (and arguably still is) the Paa of actors’ fraternity in Bollywood. In director R Balki’s Paa, he sheds his imposing baritone for the rasping slur of an adolescent, sheds his towering gait for the waggle of a school kid. But it’s his eyes - serenely reflective as ever - that do the most talking.

“Chromosome glitch” is how Auro’s mom Vidya (Vidya Balan) describes his genetic defect when a curious auntie in the park inquires. Auro is her love child from Amol (Abhishek Bachchan) with whom she snapped all ties after he asked her to abort the baby in the days when the two lovers, riding the rollercoaster of their hormones, ended up having unprotected sex. So while Amol chiseled out for himself a bright and promising career as a politician with a firm resolve to reform the society and system, Vidya raised her progeric kid along with her mom whom Auro lovingly calls ‘Bum’.

‘Paa’ is as much the story of Auro’s Maa and Paa as it is of the unusual kid with a geriatric body but heart and mind of a child. It’s equally the story of a couple (Abhi and Vidya), drifted apart years ago, but brought together in a dramatic set of circumstances by their son whose genetic defect won’t let him live long. And it is as much the tale of a son discovering the father he never had.

Writer, director R Balki pretty much gets everything right but falls a wee bit short of taking ‘Paa’ to the emotional crescendo that the story might have touched. Seasoned generously with wry humour revolving around Auro’s antics, his monkey dance, his ‘potty’ gags, and his schoolmates, ‘Paa’ is amusingly funny even as it tugs at your heart and develops into a bonafide tearjerker without becoming overtly sentimental.

Abhishek Bachchan, getting substantial footage in the film, is well into his character of a conscientious MP who believes in doing things the right way even while taking on the media. Vidya Balan, I must admit, overacts in the scenes showing her emotional outburst. Paresh Rawal (as Abhi’s pa) has a very little role to talk about, but a special mention ought to be made of the child actor Pratik Katare who plays Auro’s schoolbuddy Vishnu, poor in studies and slapped around by his dad at home.

Apart from performances, ‘Paa’ is propped by Ilayaraja’s soulful tunes and PC Sreeram’s simple yet slick cinematography. My only grouch is that the screenplay at times seems deliberately tweaked to bring out a message. For instance, the final sequence when Auro’s schoolmate (a girl he keeps running away from throughout the film) wisecracks that ‘the wrongdoer suffers more than the one who’s been wronged’ and thereby triggers the thaw between Auro’s estranged parents.

Besides these forgettable foibles, ‘Paa’, all in all, is a tour de force, an emotional ride that leaves you smiling moist-eyed. Carry your tissues and kerchiefs along.