‘Kaalidhar Laapata’ movie review: Abhishek Bachchan stars in a sweet but unremarkable ‘K.D.’ remake

In films about laughter and forgetting, flashbacks become a distraction. A sweetly awkward interlude toward the end of Kaalidhar Laapataresolves a minor mystery: why Kalidhar, a middle-aged man with early-stage dementia played by Abhishek Bachchan, loves eating biriyani so much. What links his plate to heart is memory. Let’s call it a meat-cute.

This passage (featuring younger versions of characters and scored with the generically sweet ‘Haseen Pareshaniyaan’) returns to conventionality a narrative that celebrates the art of letting go. In the 2019 Tamil original, KD, the moment is handled briskly, with minimum sentimentality. But a Hindi film without a discernible ’love track’ and a cameo is perhaps too much to ask.

Kalidhar’s disease—described as ‘amiro ki beemari’ (rich people’s ailment)—has made him a burden on his family. His self-seeking, debt-ridden younger brothers are after the inheritance (a fork-tongued sister-in-law pulls the strings). After a failed attempt to euthanize him in his sleep, Kalidhar is escorted on a trip to the Kumbh Mela and left to wander off. He tracks them back to a tent and overhears their dark designs. Dejected and aghast, he takes off on his own.

After a night’s wandering, Kalidhar finds shelter on the premises of a temple. Ballu (Daivik Baghela), a sparky, precocious orphan, is initially dismissive of the strange, unkempt man usurping his spot under a tree. But once the entrepreneurially-minded Ballu realises that bumbling, biriyani-loving Kalidhar has his uses, they become friends. The boy’s free-spiritedness unlocks in Kalidhar a desire to live—for himself, and on his own terms. Together, they draw up a bucket list.

The protagonist of K.D. was an eighty-year-old man recently awoken from a coma, played by Mu Ramaswamy. Abhishek Bachchan cannot chomp a mutton bone with quite the same relish (conventional remake wisdom would have tapped his father, Amitabh, for the role, a thought reinforced by a passing Bachchan reference in the film). Still, with his sad, sunken face, Abhishek imbues the struggling Kalidhar with tenderness and vulnerability. The actor’s recent films like Ludo, I Want to Talk and Be Happy have centred on adult-child relationships, and he strikes up an easy camaraderie with the upbeat Daivik.

Abhishek Bachchan and Daivik Baghela in a still from ‘Kaalidhar Laapata’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Director Madhumita, adapting her own film, swaps the lush southern countryside for a uniformly brown Central India. She finds the occasional detail: for instance, Subhod (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), a deadbeat cop who sets about looking for Kalidhar, is so persuaded because his wife believes the good deed will bring them a child. Yet there are also long, sleepy stretches that drift by without much imagination or spark. Road films—even sweet, meandering ones—are kept alive by a sense of imminent danger or separation. As Kalidhar and Ballu journey from town to town, performing in ram-leelas or chatting by the riverside, they seem thick as thieves. The world is already their stage.

Kaalidhar Laapataa is streaming on ZEE5