This beautifully rendered Indian arthouse film, the debut of young director Shubhashish Bhutiani, enacts a subtle family comedy-drama that anyone who has spent time with an ageing parent could relate to easily.
Middle-class businessman Rajiv (Adil Hussain) lives with his wife Laila (Geetanjali Kulkarni), grownup daughter Sunita (Palomi Ghosh) and elderly father Daya (the Falstaffian Lalit Behl), a curmudgeonly former schoolteacher with whom Daya has, at best, a rocky, adversarial relationship.
One day, Rajiv announces that, like an elephant, he senses that his time has come and he insists on travelling to Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges, where he would like to spend his last days. Conveniently enough, there is a hotel designed for just this purpose, but guests can only stay for 15 days at a time: if you fail to die, you must reregister under a different name.Dutiful if begrudging Rajiv travels with his father, and as the days waiting for death turn into weeks, the two men tentatively begin to air their grudges and grievances.
The concept may sound schmaltzy but Bhutiani and his cast have a delicacy of touch that keeps it from getting too gooey, and there’s a dreamy, trippy quality to the hazy cinematography and hypnotic music that makes you feel like you may have drunk one of the marijuana-laced lassis that feature in the storyline.
