By Maliha Rehman
Nayab is a movie about cricket – but there’s much more to it. It’s a movie about family, about emotions and breaking the glass ceiling in order to fulfill your dreams. It makes you laugh and cry and fall into a stunned silence when an unexpected twist takes place. It’s a movie that is so well-performed that you must watch it.
But it isn’t the best Pakistani movie that you’ll watch.
The performances are Nayab’s strongest forte. Yumna Zaidi is brilliant, transforming so utterly from the lovestruck TV drama leading lady to a boisterous, street-smart, cricket-crazy girl on the silver screen that you can’t tell one from the other. Matching Yumna’s skill is the exceptional Fawad Khan playing ‘Akka’, Nayab’s brother. The movie is as much Akka’s story as it is Nayab’s – the way he supports his sister in her dream of becoming a professional cricketer, his struggles to strike a balance between his parents and his wife and son, his belief in doing what he feels is right, his pain, his joy, his silence which speaks volumes. You fall in love with the fiery-eyed indomitable Nayab and you fall in love with her Akka – and had the story been told in a crisper way, you could have had loved them more.
Moving the story along is a strong ensemble cast. Usama Khan as Zain emulates the quintessential romantic hero, smiling sweetly through some feel-good emotional scenes and striking a believable, easy breezy chemistry with Yumna Zaidi. Noreen Gulwani holds her ground impressively as Akka’s wife and Ehteshamuddin is remarkable as a wheeling-dealing character extorting money from a perplexed Nayab. Javed Sheikh and Huma Nawab are very believable as Nayab’s parents though not very memorable, considering that the characters they play are similar to ones that both actors have enacted many times before.
The movie’s script is a ‘star’ all on its own. Written by Ali Abbas Naqvi and Basit Naqvi of ‘Laal Kabootar’ fame, there are nuances in the dialogues that you connect with instantly, little jokes that have you smiling and relatable scenes that are an inherent part of Pakistani culture. There is talk of how Pakistan is no longer worth living in, a nod of acknowledgement to the havoc wreaked in Karachi by namaloom afraad and frequent references to pop culture. It’s all engaging although a bit too longwinded. A bit of editing here and there and some clarity in the storytelling would have had certainly made the script shine more.
Why, for instance, did the story only really manage to pick up in the second half, with multiple events following one after the other? Why wasn’t more of the plot set aside for the first half of the movie, which focused much more on establishing the dynamics within Nayab’s family? The elimination of a few songs and scenes would have cut the movie down by about half an hour, making it much more entertaining and less drama-like. Movie scenes need to be succinct in order to be impactful – as soon as they begin to get long drawn-out, they run the risk of being compared to dramas.
Some scenes, also, could have had been included. The death in the family which prompted Akka to shrug aside his dreams of becoming a cricketer wasn’t explained clearly. And perhaps greater focus could have had been placed in the cricket matches in the final scenes, adding to the euphoria of Nayab finally managing to achieve what she had always dreamt about. In fact, the addition of a few more adrenaline-charged, exciting sequences on the cricket ground would have had certainly helped the movie along.
To be honest, the flaws in Nayab aren’t many. It makes them all the more irksome because had these few glitches been ironed out, the movie would have had been exceptional.
It’s still an enjoyable movie. A movie that actors Yumna Zaidi and Fawad Khan can particularly be proud of. You’ll walk out of the cinema and fondly remember certain scenes; you may find yourself recalling Nayab’s struggles on the playing field, her absolute belief in her Akka or the silent helplessness you see in Akka’s eyes. It’s the mark of a movie well-told when some of the scenes come back to you later.
Produced by Kenneyz Films and Num Films and directed by Umair Nasir Ali, Nayab is a movie that will always be recounted as a good one and one that bravely ushered in a new form of storytelling to the fledgling Pakistani cinema-scape.
Watch it for the performances.
What do you think?