Morning walk Hindi Movie

The characters in this film are unrealistic. The theme of the story held some promise but its execution left much to be desired. Jul 10, 2009 By Nita Jatar Kulkarni

This is a two hour movie which could easily have been one and a half hours long. There are song and dance sequences which are completely unnecessary in the film. It is more irritating to see inane song and dance in a serious film where they seem superfluous than in a frothy film which is in fact nothing more than song and dance. It isn't just the songs which are irrelevant; quite a few of the dialogues seem fake.

The real story is about two elderly people, a retired professor called Joymohan (Anupam Kher) and a retired university teacher Neelima (Sharmila Tagore). But it is not exactly a love story, or if it is, this fact is deliberately blurred to make way for the more "Indian" value of responsibility and duty. A lot of effort is made by the director (Arup Dutta) to show Joymohan as a responsible, mature man, not a seventy year old lover. He shows Joymohan torn between the loyalty and love he feels towards his son Indra's (Rajit Kapoor) family and his feelings of guilt towards Neelima, his old love. Just as the director goes out of his way to make Joymohan a hero, he seems to go out of his way to make Joymohan's daughter-in-law Rita (Divya Kapoor) the villain of the piece. However, life is not black and white and choices in life are never that easy. People are certainly not all good or all bad, but this is exactly what this film tries to portray and as a result the characters seem unreal, sensationalised and stereotypical.

Rita is shown as the archetypical westernised (and evil) daughter-in-law. She smokes, drinks, wears tight jeans, is career-minded, and is unable to make even an omelette! She is also shown to be a cold, scheming bitch. There is nothing in her character to be redeemed. As to Rita's complaints that Joymohan had treated her badly once, this is made out to be a lie as her husband Indra tells her categorically that it is all in her imagination. His father is perfect, says Indra, and can do no wrong. As the director does not show us the past relationship between the daughter-in-law and father-in-law, and instead provides us with Indra's judgment, it is clear that it is she who is wrong...for whatever reasons.

Indra is not blamed although he is shown so busy in his career that he has no time to even pick up the phone when his father calls. After all it is not his responsibility to take care of his father, it is his wife's. He is shown least interested in his father's money while his wife is only interested in the money.

As for Joymohan, he does not lust after his old love Neelima and nor does he seem to crave for her companionship. He is consumed by feelings of guilt over what had happened in the past and wants to make amends. However the viewer is not told what exactly happens in the past between Neelima and Joymohan, just that they break up. Instead viewers are "treated" to some frivolous and boring scenes between Neelima's daughter Anjali and her boyfriend (Shayan Munshi). The director should have delved deeper into why the relationship between Joymohan and Neelima had not worked out earlier. This is a big drawback of the movie, and leaves the viewer with a dissatisfied feeling. Even in a sequence when Joymohan and Neelima are shown to meet accidently in middle age, years after their so-called break-up, the encounter is clumsily handled.

The best part of this film is Anupam Kher and Sharmila

Tagore. Their performances are superb and it is sheer joy to watch them on screen. Sharmila is as graceful as ever and her performance in this film is worthy of an award. But just as Anupam and Sharmila are soothing to the eyes, the others are jarring. Divya Dutta overacts but at least she acts. The others screech out their lines, tense and artificial. The dialogues between grandfather Joymohan and granddaughter Gargi (Avika Gor) are irritating. A school going kid, Gargi is shown to be a precocious child, and spends her time admonishing or advising her grandfather. This is supposedly "love." Rajit Kapoor as Indra was pretty dull.

Even though the two senior actors in this film give wonderful performances, one would hesitate to recommend this film. The characters in this film are unrealistic. The theme of the story held some promise but its execution left much to be desired. Besides, the plot meanders far too much and we are left with a disjointed film.