CityLights

Authentic characters and an honest depiction of Mumbai make this movie an absorbing watch

There have been many films with the city of Mumbai as the focal point, but this is probably one of the most honest. It does not wax eloquent about this brutal city with a heart of gold. It tells you that all hope in Mumbai is illusory and that migrants to the city have traded their soul for a worthless piece of dirt. The last film that told you this truth was Muzzafar Ali’s Gaman, made in 1978, about a man (Farooq Sheikh) who migrates from Uttar Pradesh to become a taxi driver in the Bombay of those times.

In CityLights, Deepak Singh (Rajkummar Rao) migrates with his wife and daughter from Rajasthan. As soon as he arrives in Mumbai, he is cheated of all his cash. His wife (Patralekha), in desperation, becomes a bar dancer. Eventually, Deepak gets a job as a security guard and driver with a private firm that transports strong boxes with cash and valuables in the city. He is now officially a Mumbai survivor, and his canny partner at work, Vishnu (Manav Kaul), encourages him to dream of that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This is a remake of a British film called Metro Manila, but director Hansal Mehta puts his own style and signature on it. CityLights, with its authentic cast of characters, becomes an absorbing film after the first half hour of drifting. The pathos of those made up dolls and lonely men in dance bars comes through well and the striving of Deepak to preserve his Rajasthani dignity in Mumbai, what his habitual use of ‘hukum’ as an address form, is very affecting.

But it is the character of Vishnu who brings the movie to vibrant life. He invents the notion of the city for Deepak, interprets poverty and suggests an improbable solution. Incredibly, Kaul actually steals the picture from a good actor like Rao. An engrossing and very watchable movie.

CityLightsPatralekhaRajkummar Rao