Bubble Gum

Cast: Sohail Lakhani,Apurva Arora,Sachin Khedekar,Tanvi Azmi

Director: Sanjivan Lal

Boys eye girls their age, mark one of them as their own (in their head: “book karke rakha hai”), hope to eventually score someone for real, to legally announce her as their “GF” (girlfriend): the decisive 'neighbour’s envy'. Girls, demure, yet aware of all the male attention, juggle several boys at once. They play hard to get. Yet keep all hopes alive. “Joint study”, after school hours, is good meeting point for such extra-curricular activities: basically inane, awkward conversations between the boy, the girl, and her best friend. Things get better from there on. The film’s narrator tells us, “Aajkal haath pakadna aam baat hai (These days, it’s not a big deal to hold hands).” Back then, there was only one legit excuse to steal a feminine touch: “hamara rashtriya khel” (our national sport), kabaddi! This is what the boys get together with girls for in the evenings, sucking on Phantom, the peppermint cigarette, which immediately stands out for the ultimate in cool. They cycle around otherwise. The festival Holi is what everyone’s gearing up for now. There’s plenty of space for everything.

Roads are wide, clean, rarely congested. These children, of roughly the same economic classes, studying in the same school, growing up among assorted uncles and aunties, aren’t neighbours in a crummy housing society. The town itself is their vast playground. A local ‘club’ is their affordable restaurant. India’s industrial townships, namely Bhilai, Bokaro etc, are this nation’s closest approximations to the American suburban life. This film recognises that. The kids here belong to Jamshedpur. It’s a Tata town, which also makes steel (and recently made for smart setting for the indie hit, Vikramaditya Motwane’s Udaan). The people on screen also belong to an era of middle class India, which looks unrecognisable, only about 30 years after. It’s roughly the late ‘70s. It seems. Girls devour Linda Goodman. Guys hide the Debonair.

The father (Sachin Khedekar) is an engineer (of course). The mother (Tanvi Azmi) is a schoolteacher. They make for the typically soft, strict Indian parents, who place premium on studies and good conduct. The family drives a white Fiat (Premier Padmini). A fat black porcelain box with circular dials is the prized telephone they can’t afford. Yet. Neighbours help. Of the two boys in this family, one’s a deaf-mute, visiting home for the holidays. He’s older, and as you’d expect, the mature, responsible one. The second (Sohail Lakhani, relatively untrained for a lead actor) is a borderline juvenile delinquent. As most 14-year-old boys are. This one’s also slightly selfish, or self-centred, which seems a more common trait among younger siblings. He has a thing for a girl down the street. He also has a serious competitor, a rival suitor in a friend, from his own group, who’ll do anything to block his chances.

The pic is a sweet, rare, candid personal piece; the kind of filmmaking the market has least patience for. The title’s third-rate. The teenybopper advertising is misleading. There is no effort whatsoever to lend finesse to the film, a certain polish to the final product. Narrative meanders in portions. Screenplay is streteched out in parts. The amateurish, rough touches remain real still. So does the movie. Throughout. It’s the nearest we’ve got to an honest Indian take on the Wonder Years, set in early '70s American suburbia. Now that was one fine television show (favourite for a lot of my generation). This would make for just as fine a four-part mini series. Pick up its DVD, when you get a chance. Else, negotiate through sickeningly extortionist multiplexes that will charge you the same heavy buck for a Rs 50 crore giant Singham, as they would for a low-budget, earnest, gentle Bubble Gum. Chew on that. Right at the interval, the director came at the press show stating that his film Bubble Gum isn't a children film meant for kids. It's a film that will appeal to people of all age groups. However, the point remains that with no publicity or any sorts and no face value to the product, his message may fade away in no time. After repeated big budget, big star cast films gracing the cinema halls week on week comes this week that has only the small budget films making it to the theatres. One such among the others is Bubble Gum. Now whether this small film has content enough to pull the masses or not remains to be seen.

Set in the times of 1980s in Jamshedpur when there was no computer, internet chatting, long telephonic conversations, mobile, Bubble Gum is the story of Vedant (Sohail Lakhani), a boy who finding it difficult to deal with his teens. He falls head over heels for a colony girl Jenny (Apoorva Arora) but he also has his rival Ratan (Suraj Singh) who too has the hots for the same girl. During this time Vedant's brother Vidhur (Delzad Hiravali) comes from his hostel to spend the holidays with his family. Vidhur is a deaf and mute teenager who tries really hard to build a bond with his unruly brother but Vedant considers Vidhur a liability and object of ridicule more than his brother. How the bond between the two brother increases and how Vedant wins over Jenny is what forms the rest of the story. Bubble Gum definitely isn't a children film. It talks of the times and challenges we all have gone through in our lives. The days when a small clash with a friend would mean the end of the world, when not getting pocket money was the biggest punishment or even the times when you starting looking at people of the opposite sex from a different viewpoint. Yes, these are the things that this film takes us through. Debutante director Sanjeevan Lal sets the mood of the film just right by establishing the times of the 80s in a small town when there were no Blackberry Messengers, no chat rooms, no Play stations and definitely no mobile phones. The situations he presents onscreen actually remind you of your adolescence. It even has the bitter-sweet clashes between siblings, between parents and children, between friends. It has people using the right accent, the film having the right setting, great detailing right from the type of telephone to the cooker to the parties celebrated by kids, to the love letters.

However, what Bubble Gum misses out on is the correct execution or as people call it, the midas touch. Courtesy a novice attempt, the film fails to establish an emotional connect in the situations when it needs the most. So you don't feel empathetic for the deaf and mute child. Nor do you feel for the growing up challenges of Vedant. Instead of sticking to the plot and developing it, the director has his film going all over the place with varied situations needless. Had it been for a crisp editing, Bubble Gum could've been a delightful watch, but it fails even at that. Music of the film by multiple composers like Hanif Sheikh, Bapi and Tutul is disappointing. Sachin Khedekar and Tanvi Azmi as the parents of Vidhur and Vedant act very well. The two most sorted performances. Sohail delivers a decent performance while Delzad deserves a special mention. For a person deaf and dumb in real life, Delzad does an outstanding job. Set in Jamshedpur of early 80s, in an era when there were no TVs, Internet or mobile phones, the story revolves around a fourteen year old boy named Vedant (Delzad Hiwale). Vedant, who has just stepped into his teens is going through a disturbed phase in his life, because of academic pressure and his infatuation with a colony girl Jenny (Apoorva Arora).

To worsen the situation, enters Ratan (Suraj Singh), his competitor, a guy from the same neighbourhood. Adding another twist to the tale is the return of Vedant's elder brother Vidur (Sohail Lakhai), who is deaf and comes home for his Holi holidays. Parents Mukund (Sachin Khedekar) and Sudha (Tanvi Azmi), get too engrossed with Vidur and Vedant starts feeling neglected. After the whole muddle, Vedant realises that not only his brother, but also his parents are special for him. He understands why his parents are considerate towards Vidur. The title proves right, as the flick shows that things may be stretchable, but patience can bursts after a point. Detailing and audience connect with the age no bar tag is the biggest achievement of Sanjivan Lal in Bubble Gum. 80's is presented well over here. Every minute detail like phone models, kitchen equipments like the model of cooker in those days is taken care. There's earnestness with a heart and is evident from the characters who look pretty in those bell bottom pants. A pat with kudos to Muneesh Sappal's production designs and Anshul Chaubey's camera work for giving us the Jamshedpur of 80's.

The director's vision is clear, simple and realistic blended with sense and sensibility. It identifies with the teenage in you where Vedant takes you along with his mood swings and you agree with the necessity of treating teenage children as friends. Dialogues are basic and simple. The maker has smartly used kite as a simile which works. The bonding is not sugar coated and the situations are handled with maturity like in spite of differences the younger one holds respect for the elders. The behavior of parents is real and connecting nothing seems to be artificial.

The actors score A and A+ in their performance here with Sohail Lakhai as the elder brother impressing the maximum. Delzad Hiwale is fantastic. Apoorva Arora is a delight. Sachin Khedekar and Tanvi Azmi give a perfectly balance act as a parents. What not? Agreed it identifies with yesterday's and today's teenagers but setting in today's time would have been ideal. The length is an issue and the conflict gives a repetitive feeling later. The party song and the fight could have been avoided.