Taare Zameen Par Review

Amole Gupte and Deepa Bhatia spent seven years developing the story, which began with Akira Kurosawa's schooldays and an art teacher who changed them; research turned it into a film about dyslexia. Gupte was originally to direct before Aamir Khan took over, a handover the two men have described differently. The first half belongs to Ishaan, an eight-year-old everyone has written off as lazy, and it is the best thing Khan has put on screen: letters crawl off the page, a multiplication problem becomes a hand-drawn fantasy, and a boarding school swallows a child who retreats into silence.

Darsheel Safary carries all of it without a trace of stage school, and Tisca Chopra's frayed mother is a quiet match for him. Khan's own late arrival as Nikumbh, the art teacher who sees what the adults missed, brings the film down to earth and then up onto a pulpit. Even admirers objected to his sanctimonious lecture to Ishaan's father, and the second half repeats its lesson more than it needs to.

It won Filmfare's best film and best director and was India's Oscar submission. The sentiment is laid on thickly, but the first hour is as vivid an account of a child's inner life as Hindi cinema has produced.