Aren't We All?. Review on 15 Park Avenue

The title of my review is the one sentence in the movie that says it all !

The movie is about Mitali Gupta (Konkona Sensharma) - fondly called Mithi by her family. Mithi is a schizophrenic and lives with her half-sister Anjali Mathur a.k.a. Anu (Shabana Azmi), mother Mrs. Gupta (Waheeda Rehman) & maid Charu in Kolkata.

She - in her youth - had been involved with Joydeep and they were engaged - Joydeep is aware of her condition - but insists on marrying her. She is also working as a journalist with The Illustrated Weekly. Life is ok - till she gets sent to a village in Bihar to cover pre-poll violence. A gang of local thugs gangrape her and this incident leaves her traumatised. Anu is very angry and partly blames Joydeep for the incident - as he is the one encouraging Mithi to work and do something in life. To add to her pain - Joydeep calls off the engagement as he feels he wont be able to live with someone who he feels pity for.

~Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.

Although physically, she exists in their lives - mentally she is in a world of her own...she is married to Joydeep Roy (Rahul Bose) and has 5 kids (Nayantara, Nilanjan, Vikram, Urmila and Ayesha). She ''lives'' with her family in 15 Park Avenue - which is a non-existent address.

She is looking for the address and asks her sister to help her find it. Obviously, she cannot - as it does not exist. She believes that Joydeep (who she refers to as Jojo) is in Baghdad and Saddam Hussein is helping him and the kids reach home. She also thinks that George W Bush is against them and is preventing her family from coming home.

Anu is a professor and Sanjiv Mehra (Kanwaljeet Singh) is her colleague and they are involved with each other. Sanjiv gets an opportunity to move to the US - which he plans to take up. He tries to convince Anu to go along with him – but she is very committed to caring for her sister and mother – in that order and does not want to leave them.

~ To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.

The family (Anu, Mrs. Gupta, Mithi and Charu) go to Bhutan for a holiday - where, coincidentally Joydeep is also holidaying with his wife (Shefali Shah) and their kids. He sees them and follows them to their cottage - Anu doesn't want him to meet Mithi - but she runs into them and does not recognise to Joydeep at all. Later during the trip - she takes him into confidence and asks him to help her find 15 Park Avenue.

Mithi is undergoing treatment under Dr. Kunal Sharma - and there is a definite spark between Anu and Dr. Kunal - which Sanjiv notices during the Bhutan trip and decides (finally!) to take up the US assignment.

The End - I noticed in the theatre, that a lot of people (of the 60 odd people that were there!) - were a bit disappointed with the end...here's what it was like...

Joydeep and Mithi go to Ballygunge Park Road (which she believes has been renamed as Park Avenue - which Saddam had announced on TV). They ask a few people where 15 Park avenue is - and soon enough, people start mocking them and wondering what they are looking for - despite being told that it isnt Park Avenue. Joydeep loses sight of Mithi and in the confusion of the crowd, she disappears. In the scene - she finds 15 Park Avenue - Joydeep and Mitali Roy on the nameplate and Joydeep and the 5 kids waiting for her.

Joydeep realises that she is missing and calls Anu and Kunal (who are waiting in the car - unknown to Mithi). They rush to the area and start looking for Mithi. When the crowd asks what they are looking for - they say ''15 Park Avenue''...

People were wondering if the movie had actually ended or if there was more to come!

I guess it was a little abrupt - but it definitely wasnt meaningless...each person can draw his / her own conclusion/s from the end...and here are mine...

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

I think what it wanted to tell us is that we are all looking for something in life - and we firmly believe we will find it...right till the very end...and even if people around us tell us we wont be able to achieve/ find it - we keep persisting - only because of our faith.

Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.

Each one of us has hidden dreams / wishes - we are all hoping that one day or the other we will achieve it - and everyday we keep looking for that one thing which will lead us closer to our final goal...

The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.

We are what we think we are...and the same applies to our life...what we think it is - positive or negative - it is...as we are the only force which controls our life...although there are external forces in the picture - it finally lies on us to make our life the way we want it...

And as Shefali Shah responds to Rahul Bose's statement ''She is looking for something which she will never find''...

Shefali says ''Aren't we all?''

Yes - I guess we are all looking for that one thing...which we MAY never find !!!

PS:

Konkona and Shabana are brilliant...if not anything - watch it for Konkona's acting !