‘Kaalidhar Laapata' review: An effective tale of losing and finding a family
The ZEE5 release is led by 49-year-old Abhishek Bachchan as 40-year-old Kaalidhar, who appears to have early onset dementia. Tired of caring for Kaalidhar, his greedy brothers Manohar (Vishwanath Chatterjee) and Sundar (Priyank Tiwari) and Manohar's wife Neetu (Madhulika Jatoliya) dump him at the Kumbh Mela.
Only Kaalidhar's sister Gudiya (Priya Yadav) mourns the disappearance of a man who has sacrificed his life and his love Meera (Nimrat Kaur) for his family. All seems lost for Kaalidhar until he runs into the precocious orphan Ballu (Daivik Baghela).
Ballu adopts the disoriented Kaalidhar and encourages him to have the experiences he has denied himself. Meanwhile, government official Subodh (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) sets out to find Kaalidhar, his motives as murky as Kaalidhar's kin.
By directing the Hindi version and co-writing the screenplay with Amitosh Nagpal, Madhumita stays in charge of the film's emotional beats. The core relationship between two cast-aside souls who find that they have a lot in common was the chief draw of the original film and is the reason the Hindi retooling works too.
The choice of a younger protagonist means that the adaptation needs to justify itself more vigorously. The exact nature of Kaalidhar's ailment isn't clear, not are his symptoms consistent with his behaviour.
Subodh feels shoehorned into the story, rather than an important neutral witness to Kaalidhar's journey. While Kaalidhar Laapata is sluggishly paced and doesn't capture the sheer ordinariness of its anguished hero or his milieu, the remake does portray the ways in which love and empathy transcend familial ties.
Abhishek Bachchan and Daivik Baghela bring out the warmth and mutual respect that develops between Kaalidhar and Ballu – the older man vulnerable and confused, the boy confident and cheerfully cynical.
Bachchan has played this type of sad sack character in recent films, including I Want to Talk (2024) and Be Happy (2025). Under Madhumita's careful direction, Bachchan delivers one of his more affecting performances.
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Scroll.in
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Between the 1940s and the 1970s, films portrayed Muslims as rulers or aristocrats, a representation that appears positive but was misleading, Khatun says. 'The audiences of those films formed an imagined image of Muslims, and that image was in absolute contrast to the real image of Indian Muslims at that time,' she writes. In subsequent decades, Muslim characters were often gangsters, terrorists or collaborators with Pakistani spies. The book, an expansion of Khatun's doctoral thesis, also examines noteworthy contemporary films with Muslim characters, such as My Name is Khan (2010), Dear Zindagi (2016) and Gully Boy (2019). The renewed interest in the historical genre is in stark contrast to older films such as Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008), Khatun finds. Newer films such as Samrat Prithviraj (2022) and the blockbuster Chhavva (2025) identify Muslim rulers as foreigners and despots who delight in torturing their Hindu rivals. 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Abhishek Bachchan reveals he doesn't get ‘affected' by social media chatter: ‘I have grown up in the film industry…'
Bollywood's beloved star Abhishek Bachchan recently completed 25 years in the industry. Reflecting on the same, the star gave multiple interviews where he spoke about varied subjects. In one of his interviews, he spilled the beans on things that matter to him and the things that don't bother him. He highlighted that in the day and age of social media, the online chatter really doesn't affect him much. Here's what Abhishek Bachchan actually said Abhishek, while speaking to Instant Bollywood, weighed in on what it is like to live in a family packed with versatile and talented actors. Is it always serious business talk in the house, or does the scene look different? To this, Abhishek responded that they do talk about work many times, but that is not always the main focus. 'There are other discussions on the table that happen as well,' he said before adding, 'I have grown up in this film industry, so I also know what to take seriously and what not to take seriously. I don't get affected by what's happening in social media.' He further stated that his nephew, Agastya Nanda, who has just begun his career, might get affected. 'But with time, one also develops a thick skin. One has to know that it is not the be-all or end-all of life,' he quoted. For the unversed, Agastya made his acting debut with 'The Archies.' Directed by Zoya Akhtar, it was released in 2023 on OTT. Meanwhile, if we talk about Abhishek's work, he was last spotted in the comedy movie Housefull 5, which became a hit at the box office. His latest release is Kaalidhar Laapata, which premiered on ZEE5 on July 4.
