Sometimes, a small film throws up a big surprise.
It’s not sportsmanship when political privilege sullies a stadium. And passion that’s squashed early can leave a man embittered to the point of throttling somebody else’s dreams.
Writer-director Sudhanshu Sharma serves a match point by combining the two thoughts deftly and confidently.
Setting his game in Bhopal, Sudhanshu posts Indian Railways’ employee Siddharth Sharma (Kay Kay Menon) back to the town where he’d lost his drive, years ago. He’s waylaid his smile too, as Siddharth is so claustrophobically strict that he won’t allow the ‘S’ of Sports to enter his house. Son Aaditya (Ark Jain) can’t even watch the neighbourhood kids play.
Sudhanshu plays several neat shots to deliver a back story in flashes. Of Siddharth’s early days as the badminton champ of Bhopal whose dreams were truncated by the well-connected bigwigs of the town. In the past that Siddharth has wrapped up and stashed away in a battered suitcase is also Soma who had cheered him from the sidelines.
But when wife Jaya (Shriswara) and Aadi sign up for the schoolkid to pick up the racquet without Siddharth’s knowledge, the champion genes show up. It requires a helpful trigger from Soma (Swastika Mukherjee) who’s still in town, for Siddharth to finally shed his rancour and let the champion dad in him take over.
The smooth narration is a wee bit predictable and there is a tendency to keep using background songs to push a series of scenes like flashback sequences, romance and training, transformation and so on, with unsurprising words like ‘Sahas do’. Maybe, Soma’s daughter being called Pakhi (bird in Bengali, also used as chidiya for a shuttlecock) is a bit of a cliché too, but it does convey that an old heart-connect isn’t completely buried.
What really wins the game are the many notes to take away. Playing a sport is not solely about medals, cheques and media attention. Keep politics out of sports. Don’t allow your disillusionments to trip your children’s joy. And a nice one to kids too, told without a preachy dialogue. To respect a parent, not get swayed by a snarky taunt from a schoolmate.
It’s refreshing that Sudhanshu’s writing does not include sports cliches like a drunken, resentful dad or caste equations, or romantic usuals to explain how Siddharth and Soma have moved on in their personal lives. Instead, one beautiful scene of Jaya slipping Soma into the conversation and eliciting a rare, dimpled smile from Siddharth does it all. And that fleeting shot where Aadi touches his dad’s feet pops an unexpected tear into the eye.
You can’t help cheering the story of the Sharmas as the showdown on the court builds up.
Most of all are the champion performances. Kay Kay Menon aces it as he goes from unsmiling Siddharth to the dad who drives his son’s dreams. The sparse smiles also work bigtime as does his final retort to the privileged Singh (Raja Bundela) who’s still calling the shots in the stadium. Wife Jaya is sweet but rather spineless. Sumit Arora as Siddharth’s Bhopal buddy serves well as a team player. And Swastika Mukherjee in the short but valued role of the woman who can still tug at Siddharth’s heart in a supportive way, has a charming presence, as always. Finally, sandwiched between biggies like Gadar 2 and Jawan, a small film like Love All could get dangerously squeezed. But those who buy a ticket will find themselves clapping at the right places. It is a healthy, family watch.
Rating: 3/5
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