Jackie Shroff is back and mast

Jackie Shroff plays Kannadiga widower Kamath in what could easily be his career best: Mast Mein Rehne Ka.

Actors don’t always act their age. Ask the heroines who now play mom to a hero they romanced just a few films back. While the lead pairs are perennially in their 20s, the extras around them don grey wigs and frumpy clothes; this is not just to emphasise their advanced years but also to make the lead pair appear youthful. Actors who essay roles of characters older or younger than they are on screen have to take special care to carry off their makeup. If vanity propels them, any authenticity is lost.

Sometimes a serial just goes on and on, with its stars expected to remain the same vintage as at the start; Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Derry Girls… The ageing process has to be hushed up for commercial reasons. Actors who essay younger roles face criticism of a different type compared to those who act older than their age. Anupam Kher’s performance in Saaransh or Suchitra Sen in Aandhi propelled them into the senior citizen territory in what can only be called prematurely but spectacularly. Kareena Kapoor elicited online criticism for playing the mother of a teenager in Jaane Jaan: though this was age-appropriate casting, the role was predicted to shut off future glam acts.

Time means different things to different artists, though clocks and calendars affect everyone. Tom Cruise is still acrobatically going on with Mission Impossible, while Daniel Craig is mixing espionage with slapstick, as in Glass Onion. After Fahadh Faasil made oddball roles mainstream in an ageless way, like in Thondimuthalum Drisakshiyum and Kumbalangi Nights, Malayalam superstar Mammootty began his own era of everyman. After Njanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam, where he is a householder to whom a mysterious thing happens, comes Kaathal. In depicting a gay man walking the socially acceptable route of marriage, he stirs up age-old but evergreen emotions.

And then comes a deliciously elderly man, the Kannadiga widower Kamath, played by Jackie Shroff in what could easily be his career best: Mast Mein Rehne Ka. The way he walks, holding an elbow behind his back, the slump of his shoulders, the slow sweep of his head to a side, the bizarre welcome he accords a thief in the night… Jackie is Kamath. Neena Gupta as Parkash is great too; but next to the eccentric granny she played in Balki’s Lust Stories, here she is a comparatively younger version. While a younger couple romancing each other forms the backdrop, the older couple jazz up the proceedings with their incredible old-people energy.

In The Good Liar, Helen Mirren picks the age trope and turns it on its head, much to the consternation of the character played by Ian McKellen. Julianne Moore is Still Alice even after one birthday too many. The old should always kick ass. It is one thing for actors to rue the lack of films for ageing actors – yes, we know it is an ageist industry, where teenagers with botoxed faces abound – and another to be ageing gracefully. Not as a rambling uncle in the background or as someone’s boring parent, but hogging the whole screen.