The Signature Movie Review: Anupam Kher’s Film Is A Painfully Realistic Depiction Of Caregiver Grief And Compassion Fatigue

As the saying goes: “Hospital walls have heard more prayers than temples”. Having someone close to you fall sick can have long-lasting ramifications both emotionally and financially. The role of a caregiver is a difficult one—it can cause compassion fatigue, emotional burnout and unprocessed grief—all of which we rarely see in films.

To that end, Gajendra Ahire’s The Signature, is an important step towards normalizing these conversations. Anupam Kher plays an elderly husband Arvind whose wife Ambika (Neena Kulkarni) is put on life support shortly after she falls sick.

The doctor (Manoj Joshi) tells Arvind that he will have to take the difficult decision of either taking his wife off life support or continuing the treatment in the hospital, costing lakhs. As Arvind faces a moral and ethical dilemma, he contemplates if he should sign the form which would allow the hospital to stop the life support.

Arvind’s son is being practical—the ever-increasing hospital bill is wreaking havoc. As a result, Arvind tries to arrange funds and he visits the sport where he and Ambika spent most of their time together. Will Arvind’s signature decide Ambika’s fate?

Kher’s portrayal of Arvind is full of pathos. As he runs from pillar to post to save his wife, you’ll be reminded of his role in Saaransh, where he tried to get his son’s ashes from the customs department. Ranvir Shorey makes a cameo in the film as a disgruntled patient who harangues a doctor in full public view, accusing him of medical malpractice.

While Shorey’s grievances are all valid, the film essentially paints all the doctors and healthcare workers with the same brush. They are shown as fraudulent, corrupt businessmen who overcharge patients for medicines. Not all the apples in a basket are the same. There is little nuance here in the way healthcare workers are portrayed.

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As Arvind tries to make ends meet, sometimes asking his daughter or her husband for help. The portrayal of the many ethical and moral concerns around pulling a patient’s life support is gut-wrenching. The film is high on emotions, and will make you tear up, even if it is at the cost of being unnecessary melodramatic.

What the film also gets right is the depiction of loneliness and alienation experienced by the elderly. As the octogenarians move towards their golden years of retirement, their general health often declines, which further alienates them from those around them. Arvind experiences a similar alienation from his son whose approach towards life is not the same as his father’s.

What doesn’t work for The Signature is that it tends to be too melodramatic. It also tends to be overly sentimental, not in a way that comes organically but forced, to the point you might just feel the tragedy unfolding on the screen is written for the sole purpose of bringing out the tears as opposed to portraying the grief that comes with taking a difficult decision.

This critic was irked particularly when the film takes a Baghban-inspired tone where most of the young people (think daughters, sons) are devils who are thankless and wouldn’t care as much about the well-being of their parents when they are sick. While The Signature isn’t a flawless film, it is an important step towards making conversations around caregivers and compassion fatigue go mainstream..

Signature is streaming now on ZEE5.