The Sky Is Pink movie Sensitive but soppy

GBnews24desk//

The statutory note first: Don’t forget a box of tissues. Sky, pink or white — take your pick in colour but the tissues are a must, more than cola and corn. “The Sky Is Pink”, Shonali Bose’s most commercial film yet, rides exaggerated sentimentalism aimed to keep your tearducts working overtime while the show is on.

With a star cast and budget bigger than Bose’s past efforts – “Amu” and “Margarita With A Straw” – all of the above would make perfect sense. You can’t possibly settle for anything less mainstream as a director with Priyanka Chopra starring in and co-producing your film. Bose’s Sky was always meant to be Pink with pop cinema formulae rather than emerge as an effort that explores finer aesthetics.

Still, within the gamut of Bollywood mainstream, ‘The Sky Is Pink’ registers itself as one of the more sensitive attempts released this year. Much of that quality owes itself to an overwhelming true story on which the screenplay is based.

The problem is the creative crew does not seem in the mood to craft a nuanced plot and characters using the inspiring real-life account at hand. Rather, writer-director Bose and her co-scripters (Juhi Chaturvedi and Nilesh Maniyar) seem more interested in fashioning a functional, box-office compatible melodrama.

The story is narrated through the voice of Aisha Chaudhary (Zaira Wasim) who, we understand right at the start, is dead. Aisha’s narrative introduces us to her mother Aditi (Priyanka), who the girl lovingly calls Moose, and her father Niren (Farhan Akhtar), who is Panda to her. Aisha has an older brother Ishaan (Rohit Saraf), dubbed Giraffe for his lanky frame. We also learn Aditi and Niren had another daughter before Aisha, who passed away as a newborn.