Gustakh Ishq movie review: The pleasure of listening to Naseeruddin Shah say ‘ool julool’, a phrase nearly impossible to translate, the closest being ‘aisa-waisa’, silly, stupid, but not quite. The pleasure of watching Vijay Varma as a lover of Urdu shairi, using his head and heart to woo an old poet and his lovely daughter.
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And to have all of this wrapped in a film which privileges a love of language, flowery shairi and broken-hearted shayars, mouldering old Delhi printing presses and broke publishers, should have resulted in a film which makes you ache and sigh in the best way possible.
The trouble with Vibhu Puri’s Gustakh Ishq is not just that it feels much older than its setting of the mid-90 — it could well have been one of those classic Muslim socials so beloved of the 60s and 70s — and not just that it is talky — this is is the kind of film whose dialogues are meant to draw wah-wahi — but that it struggles to make you feel.
In the process of saving his father’s beloved press, and the grand literary tradition that it aligns with, being threatened by cheapened literary tastes, Nawabuddin Saifuddin Rahman (Vijay Varma) goes looking for the man who can be the solution to their problems. The watch-repair shop Aziz (Naseeruddin Shah) runs in Malerkotla looks as decrepit as its owner, but looks are deceptive: he may not give up his treasure trove of poetry, but becomes generous with his time and favours, agreeing to turn benevolent ustaad to Nawab’s eager shagird, even as the latter turns sweet on his school-masterni daughter Minni (Fatima Sana Shaikh).
The film meanders in the first half, coming to some sort of life in the post-interval sections. There’s one interlude between Shah and Varma which does make you feel wistful, created by these two terrific performers who manage to evoke the romance of a bygone era and its hazaaron-khwaishein-aisi. That’s the tone the film is going for in entirety, but manages to pull off only occasionally.
Shaikh with her ‘pyaaliyan-in-gaal’, such a gorgeous description of dimples, is easy on the eye. The skilled Sharib Hashmi as the faithful man Friday propping up that obdurate old poet should have been given more to do. The portions between Nawab and his younger brother and mother are entirely shot within what looks like a set-created-for-the-scene, the staircase leading to an upper level looking as if the wood has just been tacked on, not matching the rest which looks its age. One doesn’t expect that sort of detail to slip in a Manish Malhotra production even if the rest of it — the bathroom with a large tub-with-the claws, especially,is striking.
Which leaves us with Naseer and his wonderful ‘zubaan’ — it feels like he’s saying some of his lines just for the pleasure of being able to say them, and who can blame him, given the continual coarsening of our public discourse: in the sequence I mentioned, he uses ‘dost’ and ‘sust’, making us hear ‘dil’ and ‘mohabbat’ and memories, and it goes straight to your heart.
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It also leaves us with the always-watchable Varma, whose lover is up against a combination of forced melodrama and bland storytelling. Finally, it is left to the songs created by the inimitable Gulzar and Vishal Bharadwaj jugalbandi, to make us ache and sigh in the best way possible. The music is sublime, the performers make you look, and both needed a better film.
Gustakh Ishq movie cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Varma, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sharib Hashmi
Gustakh Ishq movie director: Vibhu Puri
Gustakh Ishq movie rating: 2 stars
