Flying High

Udaan Review


Director: Vikramaditya Motwane/Anurag Kashyap
Music Director: Amit Trivedi

Movie Cast: Rajat Barmecha, Ronit Roy, Aayan Boradia, Ram Kapoor, Manjot Singh, Anand Tiwari, Suman Mastkar, Raja Hudda, Varun Khettry, Shaunak Sengupta, Akshay Sachdev

Udaan is one of those movies that manages to touch each and every emotion present in your conscience. It will tickle your funny bone, create lumps in your throat, make you go on a nail biting spree and then you come out of the hall feeling that there’s a bond you’ve created with the character on screen. It manages to affect you in a way that makes you think that you are the protagonist yourself. Udaan is the yearning that every kid has; to be free from all that keeps him bound to something or the other in his life.
One can relate to the film. And that is what I believe to be debutant director Vikramaditya Motwane’s greatest achievement. The ability to create a relation with the audience!
Holding certain scenes to a certain length what the director does is that he makes you feel the plight of Rohan (Rajat Barmecha) who is shackled to his father’s (Ronit Roy) strict and regimental will. He makes you absorb exactly what Rohan might be going through- the claustrophobia of having to agree to work in his father’s factory when he wants to study literature and become a writer, the fact that he yearns to be with his friends in Mumbai and run away from his dull life. He is also to cope with the fact that he has a step brother (Aayan Barodia) of whose existence until then he did not know. The only solace he finds is in his chachu (Ram Kapoor), who is willing to give the kid a chance to follow his own dream. But then the solace too is temporary as things keep heating up between father and son.
After being kicked out of boarding school for some mischief Rohan arrives home and thus is established the father-son relationship which is not as pretty as one would like it to be. Ronit Roy’s character is more of a ruler/dictator of the house than a father albeit a few moments of rare fatherly behavior. He cares and yet is unable to love. He is the “control freak” in the house who sees his son’s through the eyes of a master and not a father. Rohan’s high flying life of boarding school comes to a premature end and life under his “father’s rule” stagnates to such an extent that we see the rise of his rebel side suddenly things get ugly. The father son relationship deteriorates and a strong bond is created between the two step brothers’- they are two victims trapped in the same boat.
The best part of the movie is that Rohan’s life is told through a series of metaphors, which is brilliant and thus the relationships of father and son and the two brother’s is established.
Stealing a few moments of joy by riding all night having taken his dad’s Contessa, sharing a few drinks with his friends and then the frustration as the Contessa breaks down signifying the stagnation in his life are but a few examples of the kind of metaphors used in the movie. The movie is long; a 2 hour affair but not even for one moment is it dull or dragging. Performances by each of the actors be it Rajat Barmecha, Aayan Barodia, Ronit Roy or Ram Kapoor are excellent and very well suited to the kind of the role they were given. The music by Amit Trivedi only enriches the whole experience.
Udaan is a MUST WATCH and definitely one of the best to have been made this year. Kudos to Vikramaditya Motwane for coming up with such a fresh, refreshing and real concept.