I Want To Talk movie review: Abhishek Bachchan sells resilience in this self-help guide

A still from ‘I Want to Talk’
| Photo Credit: @Risingsunrsf/YouTube

Someone who loves exploring the intricate relationship between bodily functions and life’s larger purpose, after Piku and October, director Shoojit Sircar turns to a real-life cancer survivor to tell a middling tale of resilience and reform.

A hot-shot marketing man, Arjun Sen’s (Abhishek Bachchan) career comes to a sudden halt when he is diagnosed with multiple malignancies. After initial bouts of denial, he doesn’t surrender to fate, refuses to become a statistic, and enlists himself in a long-drawn battle with the disease. Soon, we discover his relationships are not in the best of health either. At work, he is a cut-throat. At home, he is divorced and has a daughter (Pearle Dey/Ahilya Bamroo) to raise who suspects him of indulging in some sort of drama to evoke empathy. In the hospital, he comes up with diagrams and googled information lest his doctor (Jayant Kriplani) take him for a ride.

Arjun is no hero. In fact, it is hard not to dislike him but he is real for we find many around us or inside us. When the doctor removes a large part of his stomach, he describes himself as “gutless”. He indeed seems one for a while. After a poor prognosis, he turns his body into a project and starts employing his marketing skills to fix his organs and stitch a bond with his daughter Reya. Shoojit also takes on a similar task of making us feel for Arjun’s struggle but along the way, a truthful story starts feeling like a manipulative setup, ironically, a word Arjun abhors.

Based on the life and book of Arjun Sen, the screenplay, written by Ritesh Shah, suffers from the problem of how to keep it interesting and introspective without revealing everything about the subject. One misses the deft touch of Juhi Chaturvedi, a long-time collaborator of Shoojit, to make it more evocative and wholesome. The film seems to address audiences more concerned about the side effects of anaesthesia than the financial burden of fighting the disease with a great recall value. We see a photo of Ramkrishna Paramhans in Arjun’s living room and at one point he says that pain is a promise that life always keeps but somehow the depth in writing and imagination doesn’t seep through enough. The writer plucks low-hanging fruits perhaps to turn them into something like the adventures of ‘Surgery Sen’, a title the marketing honcho gives himself after more than a dozen surgeries.

Abhishek is the right choice for a role that demands constant scraping of the stubborn perhaps self-seeking exterior to give an insight into a persistent, unrelenting soul. The actor sheds the last ounce of vanity to embrace a complex character wholeheartedly. He not only looks the part but makes a sincere attempt to convey what is not on the page. As a daughter torn between two parents, young Ahilya provides him with a spirited company. The film breathes life when the daughter struggles to raise her father. Johny Lever as the helpful maintenance worker, Kristin Goddard as the genial nurse, and Kriplani as the affable surgeon have been strategically placed to provide some lively counterpoints to Arjun’s point of view of the world around him.

Shoojit once told this journalist that whatever subject he chooses to delve into, he does a doctorate in it. But the beauty of research-driven art lies in its understated expression. Here either it is muted or screams for attention. After a point, I Want To Talk assumes the tone of R.Balki’s writing where self-awareness comes in the way of honest storytelling and the film starts talking like a self-help guide with illustrations.

I Want To Talk is currently running in theatres