Filhaal...

Filhaal marks the directorial debut of Meghna Gulzar, the daughter of the great filmmaker and poet Gulzar and the popular actress Raakhee. Gulzar is one of my favourite directors so I was quite interested to see what his daughter had to offer. Filhaal is quite a nice film even if it's not perfect, and is generally a watchable drama about family life, human nature, and the fragility of relationships. The premise looked interesting to me: another film based on surrogate childbirth. Mainstream Indian filmmakers really like such themes because they allow them to create melodramatic tearjerkers which often give audiences an opportunity to indulge in their tears. Thankfully, Filhaal is far from being one such movie. It is for the most part subtle and restrained in execution, and although it does have its moments of high emotion (which all of us have), it never looks soapy or overly sentimental. Not everything about the film is convincing, and at times it lacks the ability to captivate, in spite of its appreciable concept. The film stars Tabu and Sushmita Sen and they seem to have a very good rapport with each other. Expectedly, Tabu does very well, but Sushmita gets a meatier part and she is convincing as the supportive and loving friend. Sanjay Suri is also very good, although his role is very passive and at times it feels that he's just there. The film's music, composed by Anu Malik, is so-so, but Asha Bhosle's "Filhaal" is one gem of a song which efficiently enhances the narrative. Overall, Filhaal is not an extraordinary film and at times it loses the point. I think the ending was very sugarcoated, but anyway, I think it's a good debut for Meghna Gulzar and is worth the watch, at least once.

I was expecting more from this film than I received since the story line is interesting and both the female leads were great. Poor editing, some of which made no sense at all from the beginning to the end, seriously hampered this film and I agree with others who felt the film would have been more effective had it been chronological instead of choppy and disorganized. There were times when I wondered if a reel had been taken out of order. The first 45 minutes was very confusing. Thank goodness that the characters and the actors portraying them were interesting enough to sustain the film.

Filhaal has a lot of beautiful things in it. Sushmita Sen and Tabu are two of them. And I don't just mean their looks but also their performances. Sushmita's performance, in my opinion is the best by an actress so far this year. Meghna Gulzar directs and writes the film beautifully for the most part. Manmohan Singh's camerawork is a feast for the eyes as is Nitin Desai's art direction. They have done it beautifully together. Sanjay Suri gives in a very mature performance and it is a joy to see how much he has grown since Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi. You can really see that Meghana is her father Gulzar's protege in every single scene of the film. But a couple of things stop the film from being a great one. First of all, the Palash Sen character is poorly written, though he does an earnest job of performing it. And secondly, Anu Malik and Gulzar work magic with some of the songs, especially 'Le Chale Doliyon' and the title track but at least two songs in the post interval portions should be removed. Other than that a good solid debut effort. Looking forward to more from this budding new director. Along with Tanuja Chandra and Farhan Akhtar, I believe she is one of the few new directors who have really gotten into the profession to make good entertaining films. 8/10.

Very poor marketing strategy.

While every effort at intelligent cinema should be encouraged, this effort was like going up the wrong tree.

Every movie maker need to know their audience. In particular for a picture with an unconventional theme as this.

The sad reality is even in 2002 this kind of movie is not appealing to the masses.

A movie can this could have made a great TV serial.

The subject is itself not new. I remember seeing a similar movie 25 years ago starring Victor Bannerjee, Sharmila Tagore and Shabana Azmi.

Meghna Gulzar's directorial debut is a fantastic effort. She takes a rather serious topic of surrogate motherhood and produces a gem of a movie that is very real-life.

Sush and Tabu give one of the most convincing performances of their individual careers. Sanjay Suri is fantastic as usual.Its a shame that he doesn't get as many chances as some other clowns like Fardeen Khan!

Though I would say that the movie is slightly slow for everyday viewer. Cinematography is exceptional and all songs are part of the movie.

I would highly recommend this movie to someone who looks for some substance in their movies.