Goodbye Is A Classic Example Of What Cinema Should Do

Goodbye

Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Neena Kulkarni,Rashmika Mandanna, Sunil Grover, Pavail Gulati, Ashish Vidyarthi, Elli AvrRam, Sahil Mehta and Shivin Narang in supporting roles

Written & Directed by Vikas Bahl

Rating: ****

Of late there have been other filma on a death in the family  like  Ram Prasad  Ki Tehrvi and Paglaitt. In spirit, Goodbye is  closer to the former, though the only similarity between the two films is  a  sudden  death  in the family. In Ram Prasad… it was Supriya Pathak  coping with the death of her husband and the drama of push and pull of interests that follows.

Amitabh Bachchan in Goodbye  as  Harish Bhalla,  the  patriarch  of thea family is  a bristling bundle  of  ire and sarcasm. His  abnormal aggression at his loss targets  all his children especially the daughter Gayatri(Rashmika  Mandanna). The two  are continuously  at loggerheads  about the rituals  to be followed after the mother Neena  Gupta’s death.

Ashish  Vidyarthi as  an officious  meddlesome neighbour is bang-on. Many times  as  this lengthy film moves from tragedy to acceptance , you will find   yourself  connecting to the tamasha that  ensues after a death in the family. Vikas Bahl is  very good at juicing the  contradictions and hypocrisy that  underline the tragedy.

Harish Bhalla’s sudden  loneliness is  tangible in every step he  takes. Though there is a line of   explanation on it,  Neena  Gupta  looks far too young to be  Mr Bachchan’s wife.The transitions  of temperament are not always smooth.  The arrival of  another  Bhalla heir-apparent at the end played by Abhishekh  Khan is more of an overload  than an actual  necessity  in the script.

The Bhallas seem to  believe  in the more-the-merrier  policy. The family has two  biological children and three adopted ones, including   a Sikh(Sahil Mehta) and a North Eastern househelp (Payal Thapa)  who are in a secret relationship: isn’t that somewhat incestuous?

In its  entirety, the blemishes in the script(and that includes a  long unnecessary  moaning monologue by Mr Bachchan about  his dead wife’s half-empty bottle  of shampoo  lying in the bathroom, etc etc) are swept away by the genuinely  moving episodes and some validating  performances  especially by Pavail Gulati,Elli AvrRam, Sunil  Grover(as  the coolest godman in  Hardwar), Ashish Vidyarthi,  Divya Seth, Shayank Shukla(as the snivelling cousin getting ritual instructions on the phone), Martin Jishil(as  the  guy who informs Mandanna  of her mother’s death) and of course Mr Bachchan.

 Neena  Gupta plays the corpse with dead seriousness.