"Taare Zameen Par" begins with the world seen through the eyes of a young boy. The problems that the boy has in school and consequently at home result from a misunderstanding which resembles a hungry monster that keeps feeding on more and bigger obstacles and growing. When the young hero Ishaan claims that letters are dancing which is why he cannot read the words, the teacher mistakes that for a bad attitude and reacts with anger. So do the parents at home, especially the father who wants to prepare his son for the rat race in the big bad adult world. When problems reach the critical mass level, the parents decide to send Ishaan to a boarding school to "straighten him up". This move to the boarding school is another huge morsel for the already big and scary monster. But things get scarier and gloomier as the separation from family is a traumatic event in Ishaan's misunderstood world. Things go from bad to worse until a substitute art teacher enters or rather storms into the lives of the young boys. Nothing is the same from that point on. The monster turns out not to be that scary after all and it has a name – dyslexia. It is just like when a child's imagination runs wild and sees "monsters" in a dark room at night, but when the light is switched on those scary creatures are nothing more than toys and other familiar objects scattered around. Nikumbh Sir does exactly that: he switches on the light in the minds of the children including Ishaan and illuminates all the beauty, creativity and potential that they have. At one point Nikumbh makes a remark to a fellow teacher that we humans are "away from inner beauty". The teacher's sensitivity, wisdom, attentive and caring attitude brings out not only that inner beauty, but also through individual dedicated work with Ishaan he succeeds in taming the monster of dyslexia. But there is more: Nikumbh Sir manages to convince the teachers at the boarding school as well as Ishaan's parents that there is another way than just stiff and sometimes crippling rules. There is another way than preparing for the rat race. After all, the world is full of other ways.
Darsheel Safary delivers an absolutely stellar performance as Ishaan. We feel his emotions, we see his world. The animation that appears in parts of the movie serves as an insightful depiction of how a dyslexic child sees things, how misunderstood "dancing" letters turn into scary looking spiders. He is definitely a phenomenal actor in the making.
Huge thanks to Amole Gupte for a moving, intelligent script.
Aamir Khan deserves to be put on the pedestal for his genuine greatness as an actor, director, producer, as a human being. He deserves all the laurels for the courage to take on a social issue like dyslexia and raise awareness about it, for promoting an understanding of this problem, for making a statement about the education system, about parenting and for taking us viewers on a magical journey back to childhood. All this is done in a non-castigating, colorful and caring manner that makes "Taare Zameen Par" a delight to the eyes and to the soul. The greatness of the star is visible in this magnificent film through his work and not in the number of frames in which he appeared. This release is particularly refreshing as in recent time there has been more than enough mass mediocrity sold to the audience as entertainment. "Taare Zameen Par" is an illustrious example of how a film can be entertaining, with profound messages and filled with emotions. As a viewer and fan of movies I would like to see more, much more from Aamir Khan Productions.
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