‘Goodbye’ comes as a welcome relief from VFX-heavy, big screen extravaganzas

After a spate of VFX-heavy, big screen extravaganzas, a film based on family dynamics comes as a much needed relief. Amitabh Bachchan, Neena Gupta, Rashmika Mandanna starrer ‘Goodbye’ is a heartwarming look at a family brought together by the passing away of a family member and amid the grief, is also a subtly humourous look at interpersonal relationships within the family.

Goodbye has numerous heartwarming and emotionally stirring passages that will occasionally cause you to cry, but the screenplay doesn't allow you to get lost in them for too long because the unnecessary humor interrupts the action far too frequently. Even clever comedy won't make people laugh. It's not easy to inject humor into a delicate loss like death, in fact. But Goodbye does it a little too overtly rather than subtly.

The funeral drama has an appropriately gloomy concept, but the generalized presentation of the misery of a Chandigarh family dealing with the premature death of a matriarch - the movie concentrates around the woman's last rites spanning from the procedures for the funeral to the tehrvi, the 13th day of mourning.

It is clear from the way the mother-child relationship has been portrayed for decades that the persona of a mother is a hallmark of Bollywood movies which require their audience to leave theaters in tears.

However the movie never makes it clear what the lesson is as it plays out. Is Goodbye trying to convey that kids "these days" don't care for their families? Does it imply that parents can occasionally be overly rigid in their ways? Is it making a statement about how people act during funerals? Is it research on loss and dying?

Amitabh Bachchan is given a platform to Goodbye. He performs all the duties that are required of him. In spite of the out-of-control cheesiness, Rashmika Mandanna is competent, giving the movie its sporadic moments of brightness. She would have given Goodbye some much-needed weight if only the character she plays was permitted to stand her ground and go as far as convincing her father and brothers to accept her logic and facts. Neena Gupta, whose role is already dead at the beginning of the movie and who only appears in flashbacks, helps to make the action more interesting. One would like to see more of her.

The films Pagglait and Ram Prasad ki Tehrvi from the previous year, which were both excellent examples of the final two qualities, served as good benchmarks. Unfortunately, Goodbye either completely lacks or barely approaches that impact.

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta, Pavail Gulati, Sahil Mehra, Elli AvrRam

Director: Vikas Bahl