In its committed effort to answer what it really means to ‘normalize’ neurodiversity for the screen, Sitaare Zameen Par arrives like a well meaning pamphlet, complete with footnotes.
Directed by R.S. Prasanna, Sitaare Zameen Par is Aamir Khan’s remake of the 2018 Spanish sports comedy drama Campeones. Khan plays Gulshan Arora, a temperamental basketball coach sentenced to court-mandated community service, who is tasked with training a spirited team of young adults with intellectual disabilities. What begins as a reluctant assignment evolves into a confrontation with his own limitations.Throughout the film, Gulshan stumbles through a series of missteps, often acting foolishly, sometimes cringeworthy, so that his estranged wife, Sunita (played with sincerity by Genelia D’Souza), can step in and correct him. The narrative plays out like those familiar moments at home when your mother shares your most embarrassing stories in front of guests to make everyone laugh. You may be laughed at, but never condemned. She may mock your quirks, yet never question your moral core and in the end, you become more likeable to the guests. Similarly, the film pokes fun at Gulshan’s flaws but never allows him to be seen as ethically wrong, only misguided and in need of gentle steering which the ‘sitaare’, the team offers him.
It is genuinely commendable that the film casts ten neurodivergent individuals in significant roles—Aroush Dutta, Vedant Sharma, Naman Mishra, Rishabh Jain, Rishi Sahani, GopiKrishnan K. Verma, Ashish Pendse, Samvit Desai, Ayush Bhansali, and Simran Mangeshkar, each leaving a distinct impression. Their presence lends the film a sense of lived reality and marks a departure from tokenistic representation. The film makes a conscious effort to represent a broad spectrum of neurodiversity, including individuals on the less visible or “invisible” end of the spectrum. While there is a visible effort to treat the neurodivergent cast with dignity, their quirks often risk being commodified for comic or dramatic effect.Though intended to depict the everyday challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals, the scenes set on a public transport bus, where their presence in shared spaces is met with resistance, risk reinforcing reductive perceptions. The transformation of both the team and the coach unfolds through hastily edited montages set to music. The basketball element serves as a narrative prop but works well for the film’s intentions. The film portrays learning as a transactional exchange, highlighting how growth occurs through mutual transformation between individuals.
There are moments that stand out for their narrative innovation, such as the one in which Gulshan confronts a tender and unexpected truth about his mother. Another features Satbir, who adamantly refuses to wear a blue jersey, insisting that his mother won’t recognize him unless he wears red. At first, it appears to be a harmless quirk from someone on the spectrum.The scene takes on a deeper poignancy when we later learn that his mother herself lives with a cognitive condition.
Taare Zameen Par, which told the story of an art teacher and an eight-year-old child with learning difficulties diagnosed as dyslexic, arrived like a quiet revelation in 2007. The film didn’t beg for attention; it commanded kindly, beautifully, and we obliged. Through sincere, poetic storytelling and carefully developed character arcs, it offered a way to connect and made dyslexia more visible and understood. In the present-day media landscape, increasingly saturated with byte-sized narratives on every conceivable subject, often encountered even by those not actively seeking them, there has emerged a quiet yearning, not for louder messaging, but for storytelling of greater subtlety, one that acknowledges that “the times, they are a-changin’.” The spiritual sequel bears resemblance but lacks resonance. Stories tend to leave a more enduring impact when they are thoughtful, rooted in their emotional and cultural landscape, and confident enough to resist the impulse to over-accommodate a broadly imagined audience. Sitaare Zameen Par tries its best by showing, nudging, explaining, and even preaching to help audiences embrace the idea that “sabka apna normal hota hai.” In the process, it ends up overcooked.
