A lesser known film with no indication of what’s it all about featuring Arvind Swamy in the lead was enough to get me excited, expecting something out of the routine providing a sigh of relief. Thankfully the film did have a few soothing performances and two well-conceived tracks making a decent impact. But unfortunately it was all based on a highly convincing plot, presented at a weirdly hurried pace reaching nowhere.
Revolving around a father and his young teenager son, the film is about their road journey back to the residential school in Mussourie after the holidays are over. The father has a secret to be revealed in this short span of time adding a teasing suspense into the film, and the tension works fine in its initial realistic moments introducing the small family.However the problem begins when instead of playing with this fine suspense element for a little longer, the writer-director decide to reveal the secret within the first 20-25 minutes itself and then are left with nothing else to do in the next hour or so before moving onto the climax. As a result they go on adding some literally bizarre sequences ruining a fine build up, which frankly turns the film into an utterly mediocre venture without any vision as such.
(Spoilers Ahead)
Giving you the basic plot of the film (in order to present the flaws), it’s about a father of a teenager son and a 7-8 years old daughter declaring a well-guarded truth to his family after around 15-16 years of living a happily married life all of a sudden. And the truth is that he in reality is a GAY and now no longer interested in hiding his actual persona from anyone including his parents, wife and kids too. Post the unexpected revelation, the wife decides to have a divorce and now the young son needs to be informed of all these sudden developments resulting in his parents getting separated soon. Here instead of getting into why the father decided to reveal it all one fine morning after so many years, the film actually gets focused on the son that how he reacts and behaves with his dad after knowing the shocking truth on this trip back to school accompanied by a group of friends.
Offering some fine initial moments before the secret is out, DEAR DAD looks like a decent, realistic venture dealing with some interesting characters played by a talented cast. But once its basic theme gets revealed, it suddenly turns into a visionless, wandering product that doesn’t really know what to offer in the mid before jumping on to the climax. And in this visible state of indecisiveness, the writers add a highly pathetic twist in the film’s second half that strongly make you wonder that who actually approved this all and in what state of mind (or no-mind) to be specific.
The stupid twist is that once the young boy gets to know the real identity of his father, he quickly shares the secret with his fast friend (staying along) and then they both decide to visit a local Bangali Baba to find the cure as if he is suffering from a sick sexual disease to be instantly taken care of. The films wastes a good 15 minutes on this silly insertion and then moves on to two other meaningless scenes taking them both into the girls hostel (at night) and in the lady principal’s room (in the morning) as two shameless culprits caught red handed peeping into a young girl’s room. Getting into such childish story progression, one loses all hopes from the team whatsoever and accepts it to be a film made just for the sake of making something different and absurd without any vision as such.
Shot in the scenic locations around Mussourie bringing in the much needed freshness, DEAR DAD also has a third supporting character of a TV reality show winner meeting the father-son duo on their way to the school. The young man stays with them for a night due to the road blocks and somehow gets to know the secret leading to some interested scenes. Aman Uppal (as the reality show winner) running away from the TV studios, fed up of all that repetitive stuff, adds his own charm to the narration, but its Arvind Swamy who actually holds the entire film together through his individual scenes with some well written meaningful lines rendered in a sensitive manner. Humanshu Sharma performs well as the young son caught in the dilemma and the entire supporting cast is just fine in their limited scenes given by the script writer.
Directed by debutante Tanuj Bhramar, DEAR DAD’s second merit (after the pleasing performances) is its soundtrack consisting of two good songs ‘Ik Girha Khul Gayi” (Lyrics – Deepak Ramola, Music – Raghav-Arjun and Singer – Ali Noor) and “Chhota Hun Main” (Lyrics – Neeraj Rajwar, Music – Ujjwal Kashyap and Singer – Jasleen Royal) strongly making their presence felt with their timely insertions.
In short, there are performances, there are a few thoughtful moments and there are two fine songs too in this short unusual film of just 90 minutes of duration. Yet DEAR DAD fails to spell any magic due to its shallow writing, that isn’t able to express or depict the emotional depth demanded by the bold subject. In other words the film neither shocks nor moves you in any way while watching the few characters emoting on screen to the best of their ability. Moreover the way it goes into a severely terrible zone post intermission, one wishes the director had chosen a more convincing, emotional theme roping in the same cast.
However if you are still interested in giving the film a fair chance (due to its bold subject), then do go for it but only after a couple of months when it officially gets aired on any channel soon.
Rating : 2 / 5
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