Rahul Desai
The six-part docu-series has the right ingredients. An affecting subject: It explores a culture of lost childhoods, borrowed ambition and the fickleness of big-city fame.
The documentary examines the sweaty complicity of parents in an all-or-nothing ecosystem. It follows the journeys of Gujarati, Bengali, Maharashtrian, North Indian and Muslim families across class and age brackets.
First Acthas no qualms unfolding like a passion project. The makers have a stance and stand by it. As a result, some of the interviews speak volumes through the way they're cut and framed.
These moments haunt so casually that the specificity of the series often acquires a universal tone. Parents projecting their incomplete dreams and frustrations onto their kids is not just the price of greatness here.
It scans the length and breadth of a system that normalizes – and rewards – the grammar of abuse. It reiterates the exploitative wheel of art and show-business.
As though actual people were recreating feelings and moments from their own lives. It’s not a fly-on-the-wall look at these journeys. The camera makes its presence felt without embracing the identity of a hybrid docudrama.