Kajol, Vishal Jethwa in Salaam Venky. (courtesy: kajol)

Cast: Kajol, Vishal Jethwa, Rahul Bose, Rajeev Khandelwal, Aahana Kumra, Prakash Raj, Priya Mani and Aamir Khan

Director: Revathy

Rating: Three stars (out of 5)

A dying boy’s final want and a mom’s unyielding combat on her son’s behalf earlier than life ebbs out of him represent the narrative kernel of Salaam Venky, a fictionalised account of a real story that director Revathy skilfully mines for all its tearjerking potential however with out going overboard with it.

Maudlin tales of terminal sickness typically go off the rails after they push too arduous to activate our lachrymal cells. Salaam Venky does not.

Working with an exquisite forged of actors led by the redoubtable Kajol – she is totally luminous as a mom swaying between despondency and despair on one hand and hope and resolve on the opposite – Revathy packs what is actually a socially related ‘dialog’ movie with innate emotional verve, ideational depth and interesting dramatic highs. The result’s a story of a bitter private and authorized battle that may maintain the viewers invested in the best way it unfolds and concludes.

Parts of Salaam Venky might seem a contact simplistic and unsubtle, however there is not a lot out right here that could possibly be dismissed outright as unduly gratuitous. The movie succeeds in pulling again from the brink when, on a few events, it veers near courting a touch of extra. Some of the credit score for that difficult-to-attain stability should go to the actors.

The director, who herself places in a cameo look as a choose’s spouse who cites a line from the Bhagvad Gita that Lord Krishna addresses to Arjuna, employs tried and examined strategies to document the trauma and grief of a single mom counting right down to an inevitable tragedy. Yet, she manages to take a position Salaam Venky with a veneer of freshness.

The camerawork by cinematographer Ravi Varman stands out because of lighting and angles that clearly have not been derived from the playbook of typical household melodramas. A transferring musical rating by Mithoon, too, performs its half in imparting power to the movie.

Based on the e book The Last Hurrah written by Srikant Murthy, Salaam Venky tells the story of a spirited younger chess participant, Venkatesh (Vishal Jethwa), who’s troubled with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and is inching in the direction of demise as his limbs and muscle tissues degenerate at a gentle, irreversible tempo.

Venky’s doughty mom, Sujata (Kajol), resistant at first to the boy’s suggestion that he be granted the fitting to go in for euthanasia in order that his organs may be donated to sufferers who want them, adjustments her stance and goes all out to have the legislation in opposition to mercy killing modified.

Mercifully, Salaam Venky doesn’t lose its means in a welter of mush as a result of the writing by Sammeer Arora and Kausar Munir displays an acute consciousness of the pitfalls alongside the best way. The script skirts round them to current a drama that addresses complicated points surrounding euthanasia whereas holding the discussions on its dynamics and ramifications refreshingly easy and easy.

The movie’s moorings in in style Indian melodrama are clear. Cinema is Venky’s second love – the primary, after all, is chess, a sport that he teaches the nurse who takes care of him in hospital – and he by no means tires of referring to the noughties movies that he loves (most of them starring SRK).

Salaam Venky, which opens with a music that borrows its catchline from Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s timeless Anand – zindagi lambi nahi badi honi chahiye – seeks to intensify the poignance of the scenario on the coronary heart of the movie by mentioning (or alluding to) the SRK starrers Main Hoon Na, Kal Ho Na Ho and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.

Salaam Venky is definitely not in the identical league as Anand as a movie a couple of terminally sick man, however it does have the meat to be a considerable addition to the canon. Someone says to Venky: Itni filmi hone ki zaroorat nahi hai. Much later, the choose appointed to listen to the writ petition filed on Venky’s behalf reprimands the lawyer for resorting to an excessive amount of drama.

These are clear indications that Revathy and her screenwriters are aware of the road that separates the calls for of a slice-of-life story and a dramatization of it for the aim of enhancing of mass acceptance. It is a tightrope stroll.

It is tough to say if Salaam Venky will ring a bell with most people with a real-life story that made an up-and-coming chess star Venkatesh Kolavennu a authorized trigger celebre about a few many years in the past. But it’s simple to see that that is the kind of movie that may discover an viewers much more readily when it hits a streaming platform.

Admittedly, Salaam Venky may need carried out properly to minimize its debt to movies of the previous and to shorten its size a bit. No matter what number of of its passages would possibly seem condensable, if not totally expendable, the movie as an entire makes its level firmly, clearly and with a whole lot of coronary heart

Factored into the story of impending doom is a love story and a household drama that play out parallel to one another. Venky’s childhood love Nandita (Aneet Padda), with whom he as soon as dreamt of finishing a bucket checklist of issues to do in life, continues to be considered one of his principal anchors.

Venky’s life, no matter is left of it, additionally revolves round Shekhar Tripathi (Rajeev Khandelwal), the physician who has carried out all that he can to maintain the boy alive, and his youthful sister Sharda (Riddhi Kumar), who was as soon as torn between her father (Kamal Sadanah) and her mom after the messy break-up of her dad and mom however is now by the aspect of her bedridden brother.

Salaam Venky has an array of different supporting characters performed by actors who add important worth to the movie regardless of the size of time they’re on the display – Prakash Raj as Judge Anupam Bhatnagar, Rahul Bose as activist lawyer Parvez Alam, Aahana Kumra as tv journalist Sanjana, Priyamani as public prosecutor Nanda Kumar and Ananth Narayan Mahadevan as an avuncular guru. Last however not least, Aamir Khan has a vital particular look.

Outstanding because the performances are, Salaam Venky doesn’t ultimately hinge on the glamour of a star. It is the story that’s the star. The director does full justice to it.