Nishabd Movie Review: Amitabh Bachchan's tour de force performance will go down in Indian cinema history as his finest to-date

Nishabd is a marked departure from Ram Gopal Varma's earlier films, sensitive and bold at the same time. Starring Amitabh Bachchan and debutante Jiah Khan, it is a masterfully crafted emotional drama that is in the league of Varma's best to-date, with Sarkar and Company. It is to love what Sarkar was to crime, but its only drawback is its pace, which is a bit slow.

Nishabd isn't Lolita nor is it American Beauty, but it has few shades of these films; it's an original piece of work, very well crafted by a maverick filmmaker who continues his experiments in uncharted Indian cinema territory. If RGV was to make a love story, what would it be? It would be Nishabd, of course.

With a subject that has been in the news owing to its controversial nature and more so for the choice of the lead actor who plays a sixty-year-old married man falling for an eighteen-year-old girl, who happens to be his daughter's best friend, the film is a very honest and sensitive depiction of the protagonist's emotional plight. Ram Gopal Varma delves into the dilemma the character faces and his subsequent emotional incarceration, concentrating on the conflict of the heart and mind. The film's story is simple and the stage is set quickly, when daughter and friend return home for the holidays and an affair takes root.

Amitabh Bachchan is superb in the lead as Vijay (an interesting choice of name), the 60-year-old photographer who has his own demons to deal with, realizing that his rational side has a difficult test to pass when he falls for the overtures of an 18-year-old girl, Jiah (again, an interesting choice of name). And Jiah Khan as the 18-year-old makes an impressive debut, slipping into the role of Jiah like a glove.

Technically superb, the camerawork by Amit Roy (Sarkar and the forthcoming Ram Gopal Varma Ke Sholay) is fluid and captivating, capturing both the masterful enactments of the players and the beautiful locales of the hill station backdrop of the drama. The execution is a case study for how a small setting and premise can be translated onto the celluloid canvas with great effect, and RGV and Amit Roy seldom allow the camera to settle, moving between the setting and the characters' expressions, capturing the finer nuances of expressions that speak pages and pages, accentuating the few spoken words of Nishabd. Amar Mohile's background score is another great plus, pushing the dramatic setting higher, pulling you into the characters' lives and their inner conflicts.

Supporting Bachchan and Jiah is Revathy, proving she is a veteran actress to contend with, as she enacts the wife's role with sensitivity and credibility. When faced with the fact that the husband has fallen in love with another woman, the emotional trauma and realization of an old woman with a grown-up daughter is beautifully brought out by her, and Shraddha Arya is superb as the daughter who is the first to realize that her father and best friend are involved. Her shock and turbulence is the film's dramatic turning point, and the scene in which she has to face her entire family in the same room, and when Bachchan's Vijay realizes that she has discovered the affair, without a single spoken word, is acting at its best.

Bachchan is one of those rare actors who can emote with or without the spoken word, and this tour de force performance will go down in Indian cinema history as his finest to-date. Kudos to the actor for taking up such a role that is both challenging and controversial, working against any set image or projection that today's heroes are expected to be subservient to.

It wouldn't be right to divulge anything more, as the film's story plays out with a few unexpected twists, and the actors under RGV's masterful direction make involving drama.

Nishabd is a must-see.