Neerja is a taut tearjerker that aims for a lump in the throat rather than full-out bawling. Madhvani fulfils the brief of delivering a stirring and sensitive account of bravery at the risk of making the narrative predictable to a fault. The portrayal of the Pakistanis as fumblers who potentially contribute to events is an unnecessary concession to nationalist sentiment, but the rest of the time, Neerja is about the individual and not the nation. All the elements are present in full throttle, including jittery hand-held camerawork, moments of sheer terror, glimpses of the vulnerable passengers (including children and a pregnant woman), and the efforts of authorities in Karachi to initiate a rescue.
Madhvani, an advertising filmmaker who made the psychological drama Let’s Talk in 2002, is deeply respectful of Neerja’s story as well as the conventions of the hijack sub-genre. In this ready-made story of valour, it is memories of the love of her mother Rama (Shabana Azmi) and her father Harish (Yogendra Tiku) rather than the support of her colleagues that appears to give Neerja courage under fire. She tries to negotiate with the ill-prepared and increasingly hysterical hijackers, including a superb Jim Sarbh as a trigger-happy psychopath, comforts a mother whose son is plucked out of the crowd and executed, conceals the passports of the American passengers on board to prevent them from being used as bargaining chips, and finally sacrifices herself to protect children from gunfire. She alone, among the entire crew, keeps her wits about her and tries to get a handle on an impossible situation.
Like the January release Airlift, Madhvani’s movie puts Neerja at the front of the action. As far as psychological motivations for Neerja’s actions go, this is all we get. The filmmakers overcome the difficulty of not knowing what was going on inside the young woman’s head by inserting flashbacks to her troubled marriage and her father’s constant encouragement to be brave. Neerja transforms into a heroine for the ages soon after the terrorists take over the plane.
When she gets on to the ill-fated flight, she is the very picture of victory against adversity.
Neerja has overcome a violent marriage and returned to the family fold, and she has a job she loves, a boyfriend (Shekhar Ravjiani), and several modelling assignments. The opening sequence inter-cuts between Neerja (Sonam Kapoor) and her loving family in Mumbai on the night before she leaves for her assigned flight and members of the Abu Nidal Organisation preparing for the attack in Karachi. Ram Madhvani’s movie, based on a screenplay by Mary Kom writer Saiwyn Quadras, focuses on the hours leading up to the attack and its immediate aftermath.
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