2.5 Stars (out of 4)
Watch I Want to Talk on Amazon Prime
Director Shoojit Sircar’s drama I Want to Talk features a career-defining performance by Abhishek Bachchan, but the screenplay by Ritesh Shah feels incomplete.
The film is based on Arjun Sen’s autobiographical book Raising a Father, though it comes with the standard opening note that it isn’t a strict retelling. Bachchan plays Arjun, a ruthless marketing executive living in southern California. He’s in the middle of a divorce from his wife Indrani, with whom he shares an elementary-school-aged daughter named Reya (Pearle Dey).
A coughing fit during a business presentation sends Arjun to the hospital, where it’s determined that he has laryngeal cancer. He leaves in a fog of denial, but a follow-up visit finds cancer cells in his colon as well. Multiple surgeries leave him unable to work, costing him his job, right as his divorce settlement costs him his house. He keeps his Cadillac but downsizes to rental home that has seen better days.
Throughout his medical trials, Arjun tries to shield Reya from the seriousness of his condition while maintaining a busy custody schedule of Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other weekend. This is where the screenplay struggles. According to the movie, Arjun is able to manage all of his appointments and recovery time without ever talking to his ex-wife about Reya. We only ever see Indrani once during a meeting with their lawyers. From a purely logistical standpoint this would be impossible, and that goes double for trying to explain to a kid who isn’t even ten why daddy can’t lift her up after surgery or why he’s so sleepy all the time.
With Arjun’s ex-wife being a void in the narrative, he’s forced to find support in other places. That includes his grumpy handyman Johny, played by Johny Lever in a role that shows he’s a more talented actor than we get to see in the over-the-top comic roles he typically plays. There’s also Arjun’s dismissive surgeon Dr. Deb (Jayant Kripalani), who comes to tolerate Arjun’s pestering.
Best of all is Dr. Deb’s nurse, Nancy (Kristin Goddard). She sympathetic but won’t let Arjun off the hook when he gets down on himself. Goddard delivers a short monologue that is equal parts heartfelt and hilarious. It’s a highlight of the film.
Another highlight is the evocative score by George Joseph & Koyna. It’s sparingly used but effective. Sircar relies a lot on ambient sounds and visuals of the stark, mountainous landscape near California’s Lake Hemet to set the scene.
Although the world of I Want to Talk is atmospheric, it doesn’t feel full enough. The plot jumps forward several years, and a lot of information about how Arjun manages his life is lost in the transition. We see little of the growth in Arjun’s relationships with those closest to him; they are suddenly friends instead of adversaries. Even important characters feel like they blink out of existence until Arjun needs their help.
The exception is Reya, who is played as a teenager by capable debutant Ahliya Bamroo. Sircar gives Reya enough scenes to establish her as her own person within Arjun’s story. She’s a kid finding herself while navigating a tricky relationship with her father, one further complicated by by his medical problems. But again, her continuing ignorance about his condition after more than a dozen surgeries beggars belief.
All that said, this is Abhishek Bachchan’s movie, and he carries the weight of it gracefully. It’s a performance that is challenging not just emotionally but physically. His movements are slow and pained, evoking memories of another character burdened by frailty in a Shoojit Sircar movie: Abhishek’s father Amitabh Bachchan in Piku. Sircar shows great compassion for people with physical challenges in the way he directs his actors, and both Bachchans interpreted their characters beautifully.
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