“After Well Done, Abba no producer came forward. Maybe they thought I was too old to make films any more,” Benegal had said in an interview last year.
Drawn from the innermost recesses of its extraordinarily versatile, profound and prolific creator’s mind, somewhat like the water that emerges from Boman Irani’s well at the end of this delicately-drawn satire on babu-giri and redtapism, Well Done, Abba is a little sparkling gem of a film.
Its humour, warmth and tenderness are not as easily obtainable as in Benegal’s previous comedy Welcome To Sajjanpur, which was far more readily and immediately engaging. Well Done, Abba takes longer to settle and sink into our satiated sensibilities. Long parts of the film describing the Hyderabadi protagonist Armaan Ali’s (Boman Irani) close encounters with babu-giri and the bewildering maze of the bureaucracy (somewhat like Pankaj Kapoor in the serial Office Office) are done with a sense of insouciant indulgence that takes the bite away from the cruelty of watching a man run from one musty office to another, trying to get a well dug into his parched backyard.
Thirsty famished Hyderabad is no strange hinterland to the ultra-perceptive Benegal. One of his first feature films Ankur (still considered by many to be his finest) was set in rural Hyderabad. It was real grim and relentlessly dark in showing subjugation and injustice. Now Shayam Babu — God bless his jaunty soul — has mellowed. His vision is far more forgiving of our beaucratic trespasses. He even chuckles over sex through the characters of Ravi Kissen and Sonali Kulkarni who are forever at it.
Cinematographer Rajen Kothari goes through the cluttered lanes of old Hyderabad with jaunty steps. No one is looking for despair here. It’s a life lived at the edges with a zest to seize the day.
The flawed and aberrant characters in Well Done Abba ranging from the embittered police inspector (brilliantly played by the Benegal regular Rajit Kapoor) to the self-serving but not evil politician (Rajendra Gupta) are characters who move dexterously away from the realm of the grotesque and caricatural to becoming signs and representatives of our times.
Standing non-judgmentally over the delicate satire Shyam Benegal seemed to suggest… this is the way we are, what to do?
Benegal’s characters are not hopeless losers. The director with some skillfully subtle, sensitive and sharp writing from screenwriter Ashok Mishra lifts his people from the clammy clutches of corruption and dejection. These are people who exude the sweaty aroma of lived-in people eking out a dignified life from the morass of anarchy.
Benegal’s narration is steady, tender and in no hurry to make its point. The pace is even and delightfully devoid of anxieties, but sometimes far too crowded with inner explanations. The canvas is crammed with semi-pivotal characters in the bureaucracy. We are subjected to vignettes from the bureaucrats’ home life which seem to unnecessary prolong the film’s inevitable progress towards a triumphant finale.
Boman Irani in both his avatars, as the Armaan Ali and his seedy twin Rehman Ali, renders rollicking wrinkles and creases to the film’s over-smooth edges. He’s delightful as the bewildered working-class soul, the over-protective father and the near-nirvanic soul at the end who realizes the struggle to have justice is actually a journey towards God.
Minissha Lamba as Boman’s spirited daughter gets into the skin of her character with a career-defining determination and emerges with a character who is feisty, modern and, yes, Muslim. Sammir Dattani as the sweet-tempered do-gooder, who supports the father and daughter, shows a discernible growth as an actor. All three characters hold their Hyderabadi accents in place without slipping out of character for even a minute.
In Well Done, Abba Boman got a rare opportunity to play the lead.
Boman felt everything has to happen at the right time. “In my opinion it’s not been a day too early or a day too late. There is a progression. One has to earn one’s stripes. There have been inquiries in the past but I think I opted for this one for more than one reason. Shyam Benegal is a big, big reason.”
Minissha Lamba felt it was a huge honour to work with Benegal. “For a girl who’s come from the outside into the film industry it feels good to have bagged a Shyam Benegal film. When I was called by Mr Benegal I walked into his office wearing high heels and a chic summer dress. Mr Benegal said he wanted me to play a semi-rural Hyderabadi girl. I was like, do I look rural or Hyderabadi from any angle, Sir?”
The scene seems like an instant replay of what transpired between Shyam Benegal and his favourite actress Shabana Azmi when 35 years ago she had walked into his office to audition for the rural Hyderabadi girl’s role in Ankur carrying pouty supposedly glamorous portfolio pictures.
Says Minissha, “I realised while doing Well Done, Abba that the pleasure of doing a substantial meaningful role with actors like Boman Irani is unmatchable. “
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