Abhishek Bachchan conveys the numerous chapters and challenges of his mind, body and soul with a never-before candour, observes Sukanya Verma.
Parents never stop reassuring their child.
When you're a kid discovering the truth of mortality, they tell you they'll live as long as you need.
When you grow into an adult, they come up with ingenious ways to show they're okay.
It's especially true of parents ridden by lifelong health issues.
My mother still comforts me by saying how she orders her cells to make her well and they reciprocate.
"You can talk to your body, it listens."
I don't know if her cells are little Oompa Loompas dancing to her command but I found her peculiar brand of optimism reflected in Abhishek Bachchan's medically-charged manipulations in Shoojit Sircar's I Want to Talk.
This is not the first time I've found relatable bits in Sircar's creations even when they are far removed from my own reality. The film-maker has a knack for drawing the oddities of the human condition that both unifies and tells us apart.
Inspired by Arjun Sen's memoir, Raising A Father, I Want to Talk chronicles the inspiring journey of a marketing virtuoso-turned-motivational speaker from fatal diagnosis to surviving all odds.
Fitting into the classic NRI profile of an IIT graduate coming to California to do his MBA and staying on in pursuit of the great American dream, Arjun's cocky ideals make no bones about his conceit at work, 'Marketing is bullshit, I just glorify it and make millions.'
Predictably, his extreme pragmatism has cost Arjun his personal life, resulting in shared custody of his daughter, Reya.
Things hit rock bottom when he discovers his laryngeal cancer is eating him up at an alarming rate.
Thank God for second opinions and poetic justice after he meets his match in an equally hard nosed cancer specialist (Jayant Kriplani) scribbling down his plan of action across diagrams that feel more military attack than medical prognosis.
I Want to Talk plays the volatility of life and death matters for dark laughs in Ritesh Shah's lowkey writing and its protagonist's preoccupation with averages and statistics.
A great deal of this predominantly English-language drama captures Arjun's metamorphosis from know-it-all Lucy van Pelt to anxiety-ridden Charlie Brown as he admits, 'Even my backup plans have backup plans.'
Over a decade of his 20-plus surgeries, Arjun's survival model has the science of self-diagnosis down pat, developed superstitions about his surgery, knows his medical files inside out, runs a podcast on secrets to win and has found life affirming friendships in his doctor, caregiver and a pickup driver-cum-handyman.
The lattermost, played by the excellent Johnny Lever, delivers one of the most impactful lines in the movie looking like Yoda in overalls -- you die or you don't die, there's no I could have died.
Ironically, it's the ones who motivated him to go on meet their end sooner than expected. Except they're treated too minor to have a real bearing on Arjun's life or I Want to Talk's objective.
Barring his daughter, Arjun's immediate family shows up from a cautious distance as though Sircar is deliberately forsaking the idea of sentimentality, the kind that made the filial bonds of Piku and the hospital-themed drama of October so emotional and endearing for the sake of whimsy.
Playing out like a wry, witty diary of a sickly Bengali in sunny California, it's Arjun's dad jokes to his unamused teenager daughter (fun guy/fungi anyone?) and frequent trips to the hospital conveyed with a touch of hypochondriac humour that form the focus of I Want to Talk's mood.
There are good days and there are bad days.
But for Arjun, it's all about embracing the promise of pain.
We witness different phases of his taciturn relationship with Reya as he goes from being at the fringes of her inner circle to a man she'll want to pay tribute to.
Portrayed with a touching curiosity by Pearle Dey in Reya's knee high stages and a charismatic Ahilya Bamroo as the young woman slowly becoming aware about her father's determination to stay in her life, the father-daughter bits could do with a little more emphasis.
Ultimately though, I Want to Talk is a celebration of Arjun Sen's tenacity to get to the finishing line in hell, hospital and humour.
Abhishek Bachchan conveys the numerous chapters and challenges of his mind, body and soul with a never-before candour.
It's not just his best but the beginning of how far he's willing to go in immersing himself with not just a persona but the idea of staying alive. Even an appearance by the real Arjun Sen towards the end cannot lessen that achievement.
