Melodramatic, heartwarming tale of ambition Secret Superstar

Director: Advait Chandan Starring: Zaira Wasim, Aamir Khan It is easy and comforting to get swayed by the ragsto-riches fable constructed with such contemporary diligence and zeal by firsttime director Advait Chandan. But once you get to penetrate the bubble of bonhomie and get into thick of things, so to speak, you come face-to-face with an ennerving sterility.

Secret Superstar is one of those well-meaning films that keeps reminding you constantly of his well-meaning it is. Many times as I watched Chandan’s panoply of tricks and treats, I felt I was being offered a Christmas deal with Santa Aamir Khan mentoring the film’s 15-year- old wanna- shine Zaira Wasim whose bril- liance as an actor is far more dazzling than anything that is written into this film to support her dreams.

Everyone, we are told in many different ways in this stretched-out ode to wishfulfilment, has the right to dream. Insia (Wasim) wants to be a musician, a fact that is rudely and ruthlessly repudiated by her rough and impatient Daddy played by a remarkably self-assertive actor named Raj Arjun.

Predictably and conveniently Daddy is a despot, much in the same way as Ishaan’s daddy in Taare Zameen Par... Oh, didn’t I tell you? Secret Superstar is a notso-secret carryover from the other far more moving and rousing drama where a dys- lexic kid was pulled out of his crushing plight by his art teacher. Aamir Khan’s saviour streak has triumphed again.

A lot of people thought the climax of Taare Zameen Par was way too Utopian to be a convincing antidote to the dystopian condition of the little protagonist’s life.

In Secret Superstar the theme of wish-fulfilment is played out at a much louder octave, almost like a flag being waved at us from the pulpit of righteousness that screams at us with messages of the empowerment of the girl child.

This is the world where Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist has been transposed into a state of magnified melodrama where the orphan will ask for more porridge even if the man providing the food is a tyrant.

Yes, we get it. But do we have to keep getting it for 150 minutes?

Secret Superstar favours a pulpit propagandist tone of narration that kills most of the tenderness that the theme secretes in its initial stages. We know the girl is a hero. We know she will conquer her father’s bullying tactics because she has a strong-willed mother (played by Meher Vij), a supportive friend (Tirth Sharma, giving the film’s most endearing performance) and most of all, “Insia ke paas Shakti hai” ...No, not just nari-Shakti but Shakti Kumar, a loud obnoxious embarrassment of a music composer who mentors Insia to stardom.

From the time Aamir Khan swaggers into the plot as Shakti Kumar, the film begins to fall apart.

The narrative crumbles under the burden of the character’s inflated flamboyance. Unable to bear the weight of its egoistic character, Aamir’s performance is more a homage to Shakti Kapoor and his brand of “Aaa- ooo” self- assertion than Anu Malik or Nadeem Saifi (the two composers he seems to have copied).

Shakti Kumar is a product of a superstar’s vainglorious yearning to stutter his skills.

Secret Superstar is suffused in spasms of nobility, piloted by its idealism and finally transported to a self-congratulatory finishing line by a central character who is everything that a brand ambassador for female empowerment should be. Cleverly the film steers away from religious references and restrictions, although the burqa plays a big hand in the protagonist’s journey from oppression to creative liberation.

Secret Superstar is a heartwarming portrayal of girl power. A bit of restrain and some muted melodrama would have taken this film much further. It has long sturdy legs. But chooses not to go far enough. IANS