Wake Up Sid

So he sticks his neck out of the sunroof and lets the friendly breeze feel his face. Without ambition or direction, that's how Sid would forever love his life to be.

A cool breeze he can waltz with. But life has a way of throwing up surprises. And none is bigger for the rich, cool kid than the accidental encounter with Aisha Banerjee (Konkona Sen Sharma)

A just-arrived girl from Kolkata, the sort who reads Murakami's Norwegian Wood and hangs Woody Allen's Annie Hall posters in her room.

She is independent, focused, gritty -- everything Sid is not. But there's a kismat connection between the two.

And when Sid gets into a big fight with his dad over his career, or the lack of it, he moves out of his capacious home Into Aisha's cuddly apartment.

It is the beginning of his education in life and its realities, his first chapters of growing up. Wake Up Sid could have been just another spoilt-brat's coming-of-age flick: plenty of attitude but bereft of soul. But it ends up being much, much more. And what makes it special is debutant director Ayan Mukerji's (also the film's writer) attention to detail, his nuanced way of looking at GenNow life.

The relationship of the lead pair is every inch 21st century urban; but it doesn't follow the route of liplocks and no-condom sex to become so. The change in the tenor of relationship between the lead pair as well as the texture of their own changing selves is detailed with diligence, delineated with tenderness.

We understand Sid's joy on making his first omelette. And we enjoy the moment when he rustles up the fastest birthday cake in the world: a lone matchstick burning atop four pieces of bread and jam. Mukerji gets the bigger picture right too. There's a subtlety with which he repairs the relationship between Sid and his mother (Supriya Pathak).

The distance between the two is born out of the different cultures the two belong to. She is uneducated, he is westernised and the twain don't meet. There's a tragic dimension to the Punjabi mother who speaks English, even though it is pretty awful, hoping that it will bring her Westernised son closer. It's tragic because we know it's so real.

Sid has warts: he is great with friends but rude to those not on his wavelength: his mother, dad, servant. Through him, we know that the ugly and the cute can live together in the same person. It is not an easy part and to Ranbir Kapoor's credit, he is near perfect. But Konkona as Aisha is simply outstanding. Her performance underlines how good actors instil regular part with real soul.

The script offers generous space to Sid's extra-large friend Laxmi, a rare instance when an obese girl is not a caricature in Bollywood. And we love the fourth-floor bombshell in Aisha's apartment, Kashmira Shah in a bindaas, wine-drinking act. Kher is brilliantly controlled as Sid's father. In fact, every actor is perfectly cast. Whoever is the movie's casting director deserves a pre-Diwali bonus.

Neatly lensed, the movie looks at Bombay -- and now after producer Karan Johar's apology, Mumbai -- with love and affection. Too bad, Raj Thackeray missed the point. The songs -- lyrics Javed Akhtar, music Shankar Ehsaan Loy -- have a sense of romance too.

But none is better than composer Amit Trivedi's Iktara, a song filled with an unbearable lightness of being. Songs make the movie soar; they help us look inside the head and mood of Sid and Aisha and help carry the story forward.

In the end, Wake Up Sid becomes a sort of template of how GenNow navigate their lives: deal with their own little rebellions, find meaning to their own definitions of independence and handle their own set of mistakes. It feels good when the two friends finally meet in driving rain under the grey skies by the sea. Refreshing and heart-warming, Wake Up Sid really puts you in the mood for love.