Watching a much-acclaimed film a few months after its release has its pros and cons. One tends to anticipate much and after watching, sometimes wonders what was so great about it. Watching Udaan was somewhat like that. The film, which got so many awards and was hailed as a great piece of cinema turned out to be just good cinema for me.

Udaan tells a story of a sensitive, poetic minded yet misguided adolescent boy (Rajat Barmecha). Thrown out of a prestigious boarding school for watching a porn movie and other misdemeanours, the boy returns to his home in Jamshedpur. There he has to confront his tyrant father (Ronit Roy), who has not bothered to see him for last eight years. He even comes across a young half-brother (Aayan Boradiya), who he didn’t even know existed. The father is an abusive bully who cares little for his adolescent son’s emotions and aspirations. The only solace for the troubled boy is his uncle (Ram Kapoor), the father’s younger brother.

Pushed against his wish into a steel-factory job and an engineering course, the boy is a rebel at heart. He bunks college; escapes out for drunken nights with friends and tries unsuccessfully to argue against his father’s insensitive directives. Driven to the wall, he must find a way out of this caged angst-filled life. Will he be able to do it? Will he come to accept his half-brother with open arms?

Udaan is a slice of life story, which is told boldly, sincerely and sensitively. Thanks to a limited number of main characters in the story, each character is etched out well. The performances are excellent. Ronit Roy delivers his life-time performance as an abusive, abrasive father. Sly, cunning and selfish, this character is neither given a chance for redemption, nor an explanatory background and Roy excels in that role. Ram Kapoor also does well as the sober, sensitive uncle. Rajat Barmecha is good as a troubled teenager, trying hard to cope up with harsh realities of life. But the most endearing performance is from the youngest actor in the film. Aayan Boradiya is so cute and convincing as a repressed child, who has still not lost his innocent charm.

If everything is so good, then why isn’t it a great film? I felt that there are many memorable sequences in the film but the overall impact is muted. It is a poignant, realistic film but it does not manage to shake you to the core. The ending is left to viewers’ imagination and doesn’t give a high. The length could have been shortened. But despite all these minor quibbles, I must say that Udaan is certainly one of the best Indian films in recent years. It is a must-watch film for anybody who likes to see movies for reasons beyond full-on entertainment.