A chance encounter on a train between a blind musician and a wannabe actor-pretending-to-be-blind blossoms into something beautiful. Not. ‘Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan’ wants to be a love story which makes us laugh and cry, but by the time it gets to where it needs to reach, we have moved through many other emotions, disbelief and exasperation jostling for top position.
Based on a Ruskin Bond short story, ‘The Eyes Have It’, in which both protagonists are visually impaired, here we have one who genuinely can’t see, and another is only trying it on, both on their way to Mussoorie. This gives Jahan Bakshi (Vikrant Massey) several opportunities to tell Saba Shergill (Shanaya Kapoor), who is working so hard so that she can be in the movies– so meta, duh– about how you don’t need eyes to see, ‘mann ki aankhein se dekho’, and other similar cheesy cliched lines, and the only reason you don’t wince is Massey’s undeniable ability to stay real even in the most trying circumstances.
As we can plainly see, and he can sense, he has enough reason. In front of him is the kind of girl that only Bollywood can dream of: someone who refuses to take off her blindfold even when she realises she is alone in a compartment with a strange man; someone who can, in his hearing, call him a creep, even while expecting said creep to help her; someone who, in short, cannot make us suspend disbelief.
It is hard for even an experienced actor to survive a script which is riddled with so many eye-roll moments, but I have to say that the debutant Kapoor shows promise, especially in the way she manages to underplay: in that, she takes after dad Sanjay, one of the more underrated actors we have, and who is now enjoying a late flowering in the web space.
Watch interview with Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan stars Vikrant Massey and Shanaya Kapoor:
It’s not just during the train ride that we have to keep pushing past disbelief: upon getting off, Saba’s latching on to Jahan, and then insisting she even share a room (the hotel is full ) because ‘sirf ek artiste doosre artiste ko samajh sakta hai’, is just piling it on. It’s bad enough that you’re a leach, but to blunder about, causing near-fatal accidents, and blithely refusing to take no for an answer, is beyond. Girl, no.
The second half takes our pair far away from their Mussoorie misfire, and plonks them in a strange country, where they rekindle unsuccessfully buried feelings. She is playing the lead in a musical: clearly the blind method acting gig didn’t get her past the door in the movies, as she was hoping for – looks like someone in the writing team is trying to be funny. He is done with a scholarship, and looking for ‘side hustles’ to make some money. The show’s producer-cum-Saba’s boyfriend (Zain Khan Durrani) has eyes, so he can see what she and he, one who tried to act blind, the other who didn’t need to act, want to unsee.
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I could go on in the same vein, but all I will say is that ‘Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan’ had the potential to turn into a passable rom-com, but how do you make a movie out of a writing morass? For the talented Massey, this will probably be just one more film: whatever happened to his declaration about leaving films? Or was that just a publicity stunt? I do hope Shanaya, who is not trying to ape any other actor, always a good sign, gets better-written roles: she has spark.
Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan movie cast: Vikrant Massey, Shanaya Kapoor, Zain Khan Durrani
Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan movie director: Santosh Singh
Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan movie rating: Two stars
