First Day Last Show - TZP

This is the second FDLS, the first being BB (sorry for the shortforms, but they make life easier :D). I watched the trailer of Taare Zameen Par (TZP) during BB for the first time, and was quite excited to watch the movie. So me and M went on friday to see Aamir's maiden creation. The first day is the best one to watch a movie since u have no personal reviews from anyone, so u r the first ones to make an opinion about the movie. We discovered this during BB, since Chak De turned out to be an average flick for me and M after all the hype about it.

It starts off with a beautiful animation for the titles, similar to the cartoon animation titles in older comedy movies. The technologically advanced version is amazing to watch. It sets off a theme of being a movie which children would love for the next 3 hours. The hero, Darsheel, is introduced in the first scene itself, and the movie begins with his daily routine and his total ignorance towards studies. The kid has done an extra-ordinary work in creating the sympathetic environment for himself in a very short time. I had a chance to see the reactions a kid who was sitting besides me and Darsheel was already his hero, in the first 20 mins of the movie, though he's shown to be a loser. The setup is in an ordinary Indian family in Mumbai with 2 sons and parents. The elder son is an ace in whatever he does and the younger is the exact opposite. The parents think that the child is not interested in studying and is a useless fellow. They beat him and scold him for his misbehavior (and here Darsheel has successfully received the ohhhhhs and aahhhhhs of the female audience), threatening him to put him in boarding school if he continued with his rebellious nature. And finally the same thing happens.

But since the kid has been highly misjudged, he continues to be the same at boarding school too. All the more, now he prefers solitude and has no mood to do even his favorite, painting. He feels left out of the family and doesn't correspond with the parents or brother as before. Here, I would like to say that Darsheel has hardly any line s to speak, but he has acted so well that u can feel the pain he is in. And then suddenly one day, comes a magician, a new drawing teacher (Aamir) who sees the kid about to be devastated. And he strives and succeeds in bringing the kid back on track. No spoilers here, u will have to watch the movie to see how he does it.

All in all, an excellent work by Aamir as a debutant director, who is very well aware of the expectations of the Indian audience, especially from him, and has fully delivered. The movie, is no doubt, a serious one which makes every parent cry, but its surely an eye-opener for very many parents, who fail to understand child psychology. Performances from all the actors are very good, including Tisca, and the best actor of the year is definitely Darsheel. Aamir also looks good, though with wrinkles on his face. But not at all as bad as SRK. Watch it people.

Rating - * * * * */2