No high drama, no pubescent hysteria, no artifice,Yes, Bubble Gum is a sweet and sensitive ode to growing up in an age when there was no Facebook, no internet and no mobiles. Then, in small town India, teen love stories were made up of cycle chases, where young boys furiously followed their girl friends and tried desperately to muster up courage to make the first move. Fourteen-year-old Vedant's love story with Jenny, the local cop's daughter has such an innocence and angst to it, it brings a smile to your lips. Specially when there emerges Ratan, a brash and bold young rival in love who insists in stealing Jenny away with his relentless gifts of mint cigarettes and bubble gums. This teenage love story works only because it has such an authentic feel to it and is poles apart from the run-of-the mill teen romances that spill over from Bollywood's assembly line.
But more than all this, Bubble Gum is a moving film on parenting, specially in a case where one of the kids is physically challenged. Both Tanvi Azmi and Sachin Khedekar create picture perfect monographs of parents who try to cope with the highs and lows of creating a harmonious balance between their two kids. In a telling sequence, dad Khedekar asks wife Tanvi who is the real handicapped kid: robust, restless, angst-ridden Vedant or hearing-impaired and mature Vidur? Bubble Gum beautifully showcases young Vedant's envy, frustration and anger at the special attention his brother gets and resents the fact that his parents insist he includes his brother in his group of friends. Needless to say, the love between the brothers is unquestionable but the mood swings, the tantrums and the squabbles are equally realistic too.
BUBBLE GUM is a refreshing, heart-warming tale that makes us nostalgic of the good old days. This 'Bubble Gum' must be blown! A must watch
