Vicky Donor Review

This is going to be tough. It's been more than 2 weeks I have seen this movie, but while watching it for the 3rd time tonight I decided I should write something about it. I say it's tough, because I find it easier to criticize something that I dislike than to appreciate something that I liked. Maybe that is due to my limited vocabulary, I just fall short of words, or maybe because sometimes its difficult to express happiness in words.

Happy, yes that is what I felt after watching Vicky Donor, and that's the primary reason I am watching it for a 3rd time. Vicky Donor is a happy movie, but not in a superficial or cosmetic way. I feel the subject or the theme of the movie was such that it needed to be handled in a light-hearted and cheerful manner. As everyone knows already this movie deals with the subject of sperm donation. When I first heard of this, I thought this must be yet another slapstick comedy movie, maybe a bad hindi imitation of some hollywood sex comedy. Well, it's anything but that.

The story is simple - there's a doctor who runs a sperm bank, he is in need of good quality sperm, he finds a guy convinces him to donate sperm with some difficulty. His sperm turns out to be of very good quality, the doctor's business starts to boom. Vicky (the sperm donor) gets rich without doing anything, everything's hunky dory until people come to know of this. Most importantly Vicky's wife and his mom. His world breaks down as people start seeing him in bad light, thinking of sperm donation being equivalent to prostitution. But ultimately the doctor helps Vicky regain everybody's love and respect by showing them how Vicky had helped numerous couples who would have gone childless if not for him. The end.

Vicky Donor's central message is this - broaden your perspective. If you open the windows of your mind, there's nothing you can't understand or adjust too (of course within the realms of reason). The movie passes on this message very deftly in  very minute details that could get easily overlooked. The obvious instrument for this task was the subject of sperm donation - there is so little awareness and knowledge of it in our country that for no reason a simple act of philanthropy is seen as taboo. No wonder, when there are still people who condemn adoption, sperm donation would seem like a totally new level of heresy altogether for them. But apart from this central instrument there are various other passing references that echo this idea -

• Inter-caste marriage - accepting each other's culture and habits. No matter how different Punjabis maybe from Bengalis at the end its the heart that matters.
• Re-marriage (of a divorcee girl) 
• Drinking - in the movie Vicky's mom and grandmother both like to have a drink every evening and forget their worries. In the movie this has been portrayed in a comic manner, but the intention was to extract more than a few laughs from the audience. It may seem unconventional and unorthodox, even obscene to some that the ladies of the house drink, but what's the big deal. Vicky explains to his wife that after his father's death his mom felt very lonely, and from there her drinking started. But its okay since it keeps her happy. 
• Doctor Chadhha packs "chhole-kulchhe" every now then for someone at home and quarrels with her on the phone. Anybody's first guess would be that the person on the other side of the phone is his wife, but she turns out to be his maid for 30 years, who has started living/behaving like his wife. That again is unconventional, definitely not something people would declare openly, but that is what the movie is asking you to do - shed you prejudices, why judge a person badly just because he lives with his maid.
• And last but not the least - for a woman who cannot become a mother herself, coming to terms with and accepting the fact that her husband can reproduce and has in fact been a surrogate father to some children. Oops !! I gave away some of the story for you there :)

Vicky Donor has superb acting by all the leads. Ayushman Khurana looked very much at ease with the role, debutant Yami Gautam looked sublime, and did complete justice to her character. I was amply impressed by the fact that being a punjabi in real life, she portrayed the character of a bengali girl so convincingly. Some of her pronunciations of english words especially of the alphabet "R" I found very impressive (generally there is a marked difference in the way punjabis and bengalis would speak english, and Yami Gautam seemed to mimic the bengali style very well). But the star of the show was the veteran Annu Kapoor. He was just amazing, always funny but never frivolous. Some of his dialogues were very well written - especially his strange categorization of people into types of sperm - greedy sperm, confused sperm, complicated sperm etc. Vicky's mother and Beeji were again very good in their roles, there characters were also very well written - the practical and concerned mother and the contrasting jolly and modern grandmother.

All in all Vicky Donor is one movie that will remain in your memory for some time, a beautifully written script with perfect actors. Director Shoojit Sircar has done a good job, choosing a sensitive issue and making it look effortlessly simple, is a remarkable feat. If you haven't seen it yet please do watch it.

P.S - The movie had some nice songs and a beautiful piece of music by Niladri Kumar as the background score. Check out - Pani da rang, Mar Jaiyaan and Beyond Time from the album Sitar gaze by Niladri Kumar.