Masand's Verdict: Guru | Reactions

MUST WATCH: is the story of an ambitious, middle-class man who has big dreams.

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Keywords: Guru, Bollywood

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun Chakraborty, R Madhavan, Vidya Balan

Direction: Mani Ratnam

From start to finish, from opening credits to end roll, director Mani Ratnam's new film Guru is a more-or-less accurate documentation of late industrialist and Reliance Industries founder Dhirubhai Ambani's life.

All key incidents and several significant characters from Ambani's rags-to-riches life-story are recreated in Ratnam's film, with the occasional cinematic liberties thrown in.

Guru is after all, the story of an ambitious, middle-class man who had big dreams, a man who would stop at nothing to realise his dreams, a man often accused of using morally questionable means to achieve his goals.

Guru is the story of a man who believed not only in personal growth and personal success, but in empowering the very people who contributed to his success. A man who understood that the growth of an enterprise, a company, a corporation must reflect not only in its owner's personal growth and success, but in the growth and success of its every shareholder.

You see, the similarities to Ambani's life are far too many to be simply dismissed as coincidences. And yet Mani Ratnam insists Guru is no biopic of Dhirubhai Ambani. Then again, poor Mani Ratnam is probably just protecting himself and his film.

Remember what happened years ago when word spread that a character in his film Bombay was inspired by Bal Thackeray?

As is the case with most Mani Ratnam films that are centred around seemingly larger themes - Roja, Bombay, Dil Se, Kannathil Mutthamital, Alaiypayuthe - Guru too, is on one level a love story.

And here, in the case of Gurubhai Desai and his unflinchingly supportive wife Sujata, played by Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai respectively, it's a beautiful, intimate, playful, passionate love story.

I mean, think about it, who else but Mani Ratnam could film a bedroom scene playfully? A grown couple in bed, husband gets frisky, next thing you know they're smacking each other mischievously, and what a moment it makes for.

Now I know I'm stating the obvious when I say that nobody shoots songs the way Mani Ratnam does, but really it's once again true in Guru. Whether its Mallika Sherawat's item song set in Turkey, or Aishwarya's introduction number, every song is part of the narrative and is used specifically to continue the story.

But if there's one song that sticks out like a sore thumb, then it's that celebration number in the second half, right after the couple have become parents. It's a song that doesn't fit into the narrative and only slackens the film's pace because it's so purposeless.

The beauty of Mani Ratnam's cinema is truly in its unpredictability. How he infuses humour or just creates wonderful moments out of the most ordinary situations. Look at that confrontation scene right before intermission.