There’s always a problem, when a storyteller peeps inside to see, ‘Why my previous films worked and how will they re-manufacture themselves in the future?’. PK, like 3 Idiots and quite unlike the heartfelt Munnabhai series, channels its ‘message’ through a single character and you know why. It’s a big star, a panacea, arriving with a social purpose. He is supposed to be special. You don’t have any questions about it. He’s probably the rare one on such a pedestal to have given this little-world story such a global boost. He’s practically out-of-the-world here. He could have been the solution to Shankar’s Robot to understand humanity, really.
The film’s just a quest, nearly a little materialistic one for a character to find something so crucial to get back his earlier life. As you know with Rajkumar Hirani, he makes him realize the realities from the grass-root level. Appreciate the ‘extraordinary’ out of the ‘ordinary’. Here’s where his strength is. Knowing that the average-human is bound to look and say, ‘Oh! This was my life and don’t we see this every day?
He has questions about the basic ‘Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan’ intertwined with the hypocrisies of the world, about religion, moralities and immediate motives. He packages them all in a single bottle here. It becomes heavy to handle them as you progress, especially in this makeshift lightweight tone. And the most important question, please? Who is more important, the man or his questions or probably both? In all probability, it’s the last one. He came, he conquered and he left. The world’s back to normalcy and a few are more aware about dogmas and superstitions.
But, you get to know that Aamir Khan isn’t anymore the free-flowing actor of the past. When he wells up in a rather un-Hiranic one-on-one TV show in the film, he’s conscious of his method. He gives it all for PK, shedding norms in terms of his costumes, must-haves and starry compromises. PK would have worked with a smaller actor, but it’s obvious that he gives the material, the audience that Umesh Shukla’s Oh My God should have got too. But, it’s Hirani who chooses the wrong exterior to show his beliefs. He spins a love track to shield all the weight. The emotion is lesser and the message is nearly massaged. Mocking god-men and literally being one? The film’s writers, Abhijit Joshi and Hirani want to be ‘cool’ and ‘today’, when they have the warmth and wisdom of a grandparent.
Review by Srivathsan N. First published in Cinegoer.net
