Film: Neerja
Director: Ram Madhvani
Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Shabana Azmi
There’s something shattering about sending your happy, healthy child away, and having to receive them back in a coffin. A moment that can melt the hardest of hearts, particularly if it gets emotionally (though also a wee bit affectedly) essayed by an actor like Shabana Azmi. Neerja might be about flight attendant, late Neerja Bhanot, how she fought for the lives of the passengers on board her Pan Am Flight 73, when it was hijacked on ground in Karachi by four armed Palestinians of the Abu Nidal group, but the strongest cinematic bits in the film are those involving Neerja’s family. It’s not just the tragedy, so much as its impact on the Bhanots that strikes a huge chord.
Neerja is ultimately a family’s film. There is their love and affection, and easy, carefree ways, and an overwhelming love for Rajesh Khanna, all of which is put forth authentically. Then there is an admirable sense of self-respect in how the parents stand by Neerja through a bad marriage. And, of course, their frustration, when they are a long distance away from their daughter in Karachi. Yogendra Tiku (trying to unsuccessfully comfort his wife on phone) and Shabana Azmi keep it low-key and real, in conveying the helplessness. But the fag end of the film lets it down, when the emotional strength and equilibrium get compromised. The beginning, with its on-the-move, jerky camera, lends a sense of urgency to the proceedings, but can also leave some of the viewers struck with motion sickness. In the parallel unfolding narratives, Madhvani establishes the context — Neerja and her happy family in Navjeevan Society and the evil terrorists at Tariq Road in Karachi and Lyari. Madhvani tries to recreate the situation inside the plane with much detailing, but not all in his huge cast of extras rise to the challenge. The pilots are cringingly hammy, as are some of the passengers. The terrorists are as much flat. Even Sonam as Neerja felt more Sonam to me than Neerja. But the larger emotional swell of the film makes one overlook things. You don’t even realise that it’s the selflessness and courage of real characters you actually end up applauding, than the actors playing them.
Namrata Joshi
