Ghoomer review: Abhishek Bachchan-Saiyami Kher's film is a lopsided tale of cricket and redemption

2.5/5

On the eve of her international cricket debut, batting sensation Anina (Saiyami Kher) loses her right hand in a tragic accident. A cold, bitter, and defeated cricketer (Abhishek A. Bachchan) comes into her life, gives her a new goal, and uses cutting-edge techniques to teach her to bowl for the Indian national team once more. They come up with this unique bowling technique called "Ghoomer" in an effort to throw off her rivals.

In the post-interval scene, Paddy (Abhishek Bachchan) tells Anina (Saiyami Kher), "Your left hand has to earn the right to bowl." This, in a way, must take up the whole space of the film, but in no time, within a song, we see her flexing her muscles after creating a 22-yard cricket pitch from scratch with her left hand. However, if you think that has made her the bowler, then that's where slight predictions go wrong, and we see her becoming one ultimately, and that too a smooth one when there is no one to bat.

This flaky establishment starts at the beginning of the film. The first scene itself shows a stadium full of people chanting "ghoomer", and Anina enters the stadium and touches the national flag with her left hand. Then we are taken back to the time when she was training and her mentor-grandmother, Shabana Azmi, kept track of her movements on the cricket field. Then again, we go back to her childhood days, where she has been practising cricket, and she finds her childhood sweetheart, Jeet (Angad Bedi).

The establishment of Anina's life takes up the first 15 minutes of the film, and in quick succession, we see her being a part of India's team as she is one of the finest batters. Amid that, Paddy invades the selection session and calls her out by saying she is not fit to be a part of the team, which leads her to discouragement. Eventually, the continuation of humiliation leads her to have an accident, and her right arm gets amputated.

In the film's first half, everything happens so quickly that some scenes could have been longer to get an emotional touch. You can't just have songs to make it work or to generate empathy towards Anina. The emotional chord fails to strike to an extent, and by the time it tries to kick in, we have completed the film's first half. During the interval, I was just trying to think that Saiyami, as an actor, fails to invoke those emotions in the audience, as she hardly tries to emote them in her own way. However, the second half comes as a redemption, showing her mostly playing cricket, which is also a forte for the actor in real life.

But when a film is based on an underdog who defies all norms and becomes a cricketer, the playful part should be about life beyond sports. The biggest problem here is that when "real" life is shown, it's wrapped up with songs, so dialogues are mostly cricket jargon.

To connect with Anina and her story, the only link created is that of cricket, and in a two-hour-long film, what more can we show? Well, that's a question I have to ask R. Balki and his two writers, Rahul Sengupta and Rishi Virmani. To add to that, we get a "failed" man who wants to get cheered for playing once for India, but not for him directly now but through Anina. After bullying her and seeing her have an accident, Paddy can only motivate her to be a left-handed bowler. It looks inspirational and aspirational too, but the execution makes you feel otherwise.

After a flaky establishment in the first half, the second half rushes so quickly to show her play for Team India that you will be scratching your head, thinking, Is that how the selection committee works? 

Coming to performances, the weak part of the film is seeing Saiyami not be able to "act" apart from slaying it on the field. Her dialogue delivery is violent, as are her actions; this helps her show that she is a strong and resilient person despite just suffering from the most tragic accident of her life. But as a viewer, not so much to work on us.

Abhishek has a monologue about being a failure, which he gives in a drunken state. Yes, the actor plays a failed alcoholic ex-cricketer who has a lifelong membership at the club and makes full use of the happy hours. But the template created for the actor is such a usual trope, making him the rudest and most horrible person to stand by. Yes, he is a decent actor, but having said that, to bring out the best in him, it can only be in a film where he is a failure, going on the right path—that cannot always be the case.

To watch Shabana Azmi play a weak character without a solo shining moment is, so to speak, a crime. The actor of her stature has been zeroed down to be just a grandmother who wants to see her granddaughter successful, but there are no heartbreaking moments on her part where we see her break down or have a confrontational scene with Anina. However, she justifies herself by saying she is a Roger Federer fan, which is not good enough.

More dialogues are given to Amitabh Bachchan in his special appearance, which becomes annoying after a point in time. The megastar has been given obscure lines to make him an "enthu cutlet" as a commentator for the cricket match. But it just doesn't have that charm that Bachchan mostly had with his cameos.

A special mention goes to Ivanka Das, who plays Paddy's adopted trans sister, Rasika. She is an absolute delight to watch and elevates the scenes she is a part of.

Ghoomer: 5 reasons to watch Abhishek Bachchan and Saiyami Kher's sports drama film

Ghoomer truly bamboozles us into believing that the film is an underdog tale, but actually, Anina is a pawn for the redemption of Paddy. So eventually, everything comes down to a male gaze, right?

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