I Want To Talk review: Abhishek Bachchan delivers a stellar act in Shoojit Sircar's half-baked drama
Poster of Abhishek Bachchan's film I Want to Talk
For a man who has delivered the simplest of the stories in the most heartwarming films, Shoojit Sircar falters a bit with his latest I Want To Talk. The film, based on a real person, talks of a man's relentless pursuit to live despite the medical challenges that life keeps throwing at him. The film highlights the journey of Arjun Sen (Abhishek Bachchan) through years of medical misfortunes and surgeries and his constant ability to fight back. It also highlights his evolving relationship with his daughter over a few years. I Want To Talk deals with loneliness, illness and impending death - themes that Sircar has deftly handled before in films like October and Piku. But unlike the previous films, Sircar's latest doesn't leave a defining impact - despite Abhishek Bachchan delivering one of his finest performances in recent years.
I Want To Talk has Bachchan playing an advertising smart alec who excels at his job and thinks he is a present dad to his daughter on days he is permitted to meet her. Things turn upside down when he is diagnosed with cancer and is told he has only 100 days to live. The rest of the story of I Want To Talk has Bachchan or Arjun Sen navigating life amid multiple surgeries, a divorce, chemotherapies, ligament injuries, radiation and more. He moves houses, gets fired and starts a business of his own and contemplates suicide even as he struggles to build a connection with his daughter Reya initially.
When Arjun and his wife divorce, he admits that he is the weekend father, present for Reya's important life events —or so he thinks. But a simple drawing by Reya depicting her circle of people and his position in that circle jolts him out of his slumber into reality. He now must live not only for himself but also to gain the trust and friendship of his daughter.
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Much like Piku, where Abhishek Bachchan's real dad Amitabh Bachchan had played a paranoid, overprotective yet childlike father to Deepika Padukone, Abhishek's Arjun too seems like an extension of Bhaskor Banerjee. He too needs mothering from his teenage daughter and he too is paranoid of illnesses and death, But Arjun of I Want To Talk is also a survivor and a fighter who 'manipulates' - as his doctor says- his body, and mind to be alive. 20 odd surgeries and jaw dislocation notwithstanding, Arjun still has much to say to anyone and everyone willing to listen.
I Want To Talk is releasing in theatres on November 22.
