The Sky Is Pink Review: Shonali Bose’s Nuanced Direction And Priyanka Chopra’s Excellent Performance Makes This An Extraordinary Film

Film: The Sky Is Pink

Director: Shonali Bose

Actors: Priyanka Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim

My Verdict: Shonali Bose Is One Of The Best Directors In The Industry And This Film Is Proof!

Rated: 5 Out Of 5 Stars

Shonali Bose is an adept director when it comes to telling stories about life-threatening diseases. Earlier, she had done the same with Margarita With A Straw that had Kalki Koechlin in the lead role and with The Sky Is Pink, Bose has centred her next film around CSID! It is a genetic disease that impairs the immune system. People who have this disease are highly susceptible to viral infections.

In the film, Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar play a couple who have a common genetic disorder that gives way to this deficiency in their female children. The film is based on real-life couple Aditi and Niren Chaudhury who lost their daughter Aisha to this disease!

Priyanka Chopra plays Aditi and Farhan Akhtar plays Niren while Aisha is played by the very talented Zaira Wasim.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call the film a masterpiece. Shonali’s direction and the extraordinary performance of the cast have elevated the film to a different level. Right from the writing, to the music and the editing, everything is just so realistic – that is the beauty of the film.

The film spans a period of 25 years and one of the best parts of it was the treatment and the non-linear editing that sort of dwells on crucial facets of their lives which become the backbone for the film.

This is indeed a very good time for Indian cinema that such films are being made and money is being invested in them.  The demarcation between the arthouse cinema and the commercial cinema space is gradually diminishing and how! Indeed, content is becoming the king.

Coming to the performances, it was an out and out Priyanka Chopra film, she wields the film! It is hers. She makes sure that she leaves an impact in every scene. Most actresses will be apprehensive to take up such a role. But Priyanka takes it up and goes for a kill. There have been many good performances in her kitty but with this, she has set a benchmark for herself which will be kind of difficult for her to transgress. The pain, the anxiety, the tediousness to take care of someone who is diseased in the family, without heeding time, without heeding personal health, the trauma and the emotional upheavals. To know, you are fighting a lost battle, and you are fighting it with utmost grit and determination - being absolutely aware of the consequences and yet clinging on to hope!

Priyanka has done a fabulous job, and the direction is absolutely stupendous. The sensitivity with which the director has held on to the ropes of the film, the little nuances that she has harped on, the non-verbal communication between the husband and the wife – (I am so carried away by the film that my writing and it’s flow seems to be a bit haywire now.) That is the kind of impact it had!

Farhan Akhtar’s Niren Chaudhary (Aditi’s husband and Aisha’s father) was again a class apart performance. He was so believable. His portrayal of Niren looked as though we have known such characters forever. We have been with them, grown up with them. It was real, it was organic. He was restrained in his approach to the role.

I cannot forget the scene when the family doctor Viren advises on lung transplant for Aisha and Niren too wants the lung transplant done because it would give her daughter a new lease of life (another 10 years) but Aditi doesn’t want it (because she can’t bear to watch her daughter in a vegetative state). The look in Priyanka Chopra’s eyes when she retaliates Saying, “Do you remember, you had listened to the doctors during Tanya’s (their other daughter) ailment too. What happened?” The look on Farhan’s face - (the how could I be guilty for that and yet I am …kind of look) was expressed through the silence. The whole mental altercation going on within him, (Did he do anything wrong by going with science and sticking to what the doctors said?) This whole dilemma was so eloquently brought out through the silence.

Zaira Wasim is definitely a wonderful actor. The film is narrated through her character. Even though many would consider this to be a flaw, (given the fact that she is already dead) it definitely imparted that surreal, otherworldly feeling which was more than necessary for the film! She is phenomenal in the film; she looks beautiful and her performance too is well-defined. The scenes where she has fits and when she speaks to her brother and confides that she doesn’t want to die are played to the T. The feeble tremulous voice, the sick look on her face, the quivering fingers, all of it was pronounced and yet understated!

How can one forget the death scene? There were no cries, or howls or tears flowing like the Zulu river. It was all so normal and the way things happen minus the dramatization! The film had my eyes welled up throughput the most of the second part!

The music, the soundtrack, the edit even the songs were well placed and the usage of the auditory leitmotif too was extremely effective! The film came a full circle and that was another good part of the film. It wasn’t just left at the death or the burial of Aisha, it came back to an understanding if their parents and how they reconcile to their fate and come together once again to start life anew!

Shonali, you have done a magnificent job in the film. If this film is not applauded, I don’t know which one will.