Gustaak Ishq sways you to become a wordsmith. Romance remains alive, but gets played within tautology. When brevity is supreme, Ishq vows to live within the medium of the devices that each word carries, as the literary luminaries sometimes say. The film amplifies it further. It is an ode to the old: old days, sketched under the Mughals’ tonals, old times, and an old kind of love that zigzags through the souls of Old Delhi and its characters, echoing the ancient.
The story takes the lead with a similar light. It has three pillars buoying the narrative: Naseeruddin Shah (Aziz Beg), Vijay Varma (Babban), and Fatima Sana Shaikh (Minnie, Aziz’s daughter). The supporting cast includes Sharib Hashmi (Bhure) and Rohan Varma (Jumman), who all blossomed to make the presumptions stand where they strived to.
The charm goes slow-paced. There is this trance that every moment illustrates. Urdu gets vigour and lift in the film. In these co-occurring times, Urdu feels like the bypassed hoagie; the film gives it the meritorious ballads. You find the rhythm in the usuals and the unusuals, in the gazes, in the annals. Gustaak(h)… the audacity meditates on the idea of loving Urdu. The film exhorts you to fall in love with linguistics, with a nervy nod to romance (ishq).
The set design takes your breath away. Bankrolled by Manish Malhotra’s production house Stage5, the romance took a turn in fashion. By and large, with the theatrics that we have witnessed, learnt from the stalwarts, and glanced at the stage plays, we know the layers a single costume can draw in. Set in 1998 in Delhi, the film apprehends its nuance. And coming from Manish Malhotra, it could be regarded as a given. Absolutely therapeutic to watch.
Helmed by Vibhu Puri, with Prasshant co-assisting in penning the narrative, the film assembles the spine of what love could look like from the perceptions of poesy.
IWMBuzz rates it 3.5/5 stars.
