Movies that feature sports give a huge high. Throw in an underdog, add in generous doses of struggle and finally show the triumph of human spirit, success and fame. What’s not to like? It will move even the less emotional among us. Also, these are wonderful movies to watch with kids. You are revealing to them good role models and also showing them the value of things like discipline, perseverance, hard work and so on which seem unpalatable especially when coming out of parents’ mouth.
December end was a movie binge period for our family. My husband, who normally stays away from Hindi movies, was also pulled in the hurricane that hit our family. 🙂 One of the movies we watched was MS Dhoni – The Untold Story.
Whether you have kids or not, this movie is worth a watch or even more. No, I won’t bore you with a review; you may have already read a number of them. I will just dwell upon what I related to in the movie.
MS Dhoni – The Untold Story is the tale of the rise of M S Dhoni, the iconic wicketkeeper-batsman and captain of the Indian cricket team who scaled great heights. I have watched his career shape up as that was I time I used to watch cricket regularly. I have admired him for some spectacular qualities like his calm under immense pressure, his impeccable conduct both on and off the field (men with good character appeal to me), his no-nonsense nature, his ability to take tough decisions and his dedication to a sport that sees highs and lows worse than stock markets.
What I was not aware of was his immense struggle coming as he did from a lower middle-class family in erstwhile Bihar in the days when all our sporting heroes came from larger towns or from more affluent families. Anyone who plays cricket in India knows how truly difficult the competition is to make it in the playing eleven. And frankly, I would be very nervous if my son were to show interest in becoming a cricketer. As a normal Indian parent, I want my kids to have a well-rounded personality but pay attention to their studies.
For his family to take that tough decision was truly commendable. The movie also took us through his enormous trials when he often lost confidence in himself when failure accosted him at every turn and he almost turned into a bitter, dejected human being. His pillar of strength was his sister and a bunch of friends who would do anything to see him succeed. His own constant battle with hours of monotonous work and then equal hours of practice and then a very personal loss of a girlfriend. It just goes to show that all we see and envy is the glamour and success. The blood, sweat and toil that goes into it is stuff that lesser mortals are not capable of giving. A tale that will truly touch your heart.
The story had many heartwarming moments. As a parent, I could empathise with his middle-class parents who had very small dreams for their son. That he’d get a government job and be stable in his life. His own father was a blue-collar worker and hence wanted his children to study and become something in life. The dreams we can all relate with. Yet, when the time came, his parents rallied around him and supported his decision of quitting his government job to concentrate on his cricket career. A decision that put their son’s entire future at stake.
The songs feel slightly out of place and the romantic tales a bit of a stretch. The movie also largely skirted around any cricketing controversies while mostly keeping it personal.
As an aside, I can’t imagine how these stars choose people to date or settle with, what with girls throwing themselves at them at all times. We have all watched Dhoni, the person and know that he never allowed success to go to his head. Just recently he quit as the captain of the Indian one-day team after already having given up captaincy of the test team earlier. He is a man who Indian cricket fans will always remember.
Yes, watch it with your kids. It is immensely entertaining. The star cast is quite good. Sushant, who played Dhoni on screen, put his heart and soul into it. The cricketing scenes seem quite real.
The lessons you can’t learn at home, you learn on a playground.
This movie has some of those for all of us.
Picture courtesy: Vecton on Shutterstock.
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