'I Want To Talk' Movie Ending Explained & Full Story: Did Arjun Run In The Marathon?

For starters, I Want to Talk could have been an American film. Our persistent protagonist could have been an American man. Shoojit Sircar’s latest is already set in the USA, and it does look a lot like some post 2010 American indies. Even at heart, the approach is very non-bollywood – which probably is the reason for it turning out to be a box office bomb. But from start to end, it is very much clear that this is exactly how Sircar wanted to tell the story – with all his usual quirks, his typical brand of humor and some very ear pleasing Taba Chake songs thrown in the middle. Those songs – despite just being used as narrative tools – are the only thing making I Want to Talk an Indian movie. Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that the story is, in fact, inspired by cancer survivor Arjun Sen (Orjun, if we go by the Bengali pronunciation). Abhishek Bachchan, an actor who never really got his due owing to his lineage, plays the part in what should be considered his career best effort. For the most part, Sircar doesn’t use any background score (quite certain that was intentional) and relies on Bachchan to carry the whole scene. And this turns out to be a decision which works wonderfully in the movie’s favour.

Spoilers Ahead

Arjun Sen was named after the iconic Mahabharata character because his parents thought he would turn out to be quite average in life, so he ought to have a great name at least. But he ended up leaving up to that name, at least academically and career-wise. He went to an IIT (which is often regarded as the pinnacle of education in India for people in STEM), got an MBA from the USA and became a cut-throat management guru. In fact, Sircar introduces the character in a very Don Draper-esque manner – he would do anything to sell the product. And just like Jon Hamm’s iconic Mad Men character, Arjun here has also messed up when it comes to family, at least as per societal norms. He is already divorced – we never see the ex-wife by the way, which is another great decision taken by the director – and has a little daughter, Reya, who he co-parents. He is not an absentee father, but in Reya’s orbit of circles, Arjun is in the eighth one. Her mom and Reya are at the centre of the circle by the way, as explained by Reya to her father in a very well crafted scene in the middle of the movie. 

For a man like Arjun Sen, who never smokes or drinks, getting diagnosed with Laryngeal cancer (throat cancer in layman’s terms) is quite the shock. The doctor that reveals the diagnosis also tells him that he might not live to see next Christmas. But Arjun is a man who doesn’t break easily. So he goes for a second opinion, to a certain Dr. Deb (the Bengali in me is quite overjoyed to find so many Bengali characters, by the way) who appears to be quite the pragmatist. He breaks it down to Arjun exactly what needs to be done – surgeries, and more surgeries, with the hope that he doesn’t collapse after or during one of them. I Want to Talk seems to have a penchant for diagrams. Just like Reya uses one to explain to her father how distant the two of them are, Arjun also gives a diagram of the human throat to Dr Deb and asks him to explain his situation with a pictorial description. Dr Deb obliges and the two of them develop a bond which could very well be termed a friendship. 

This shouldn’t even be the right question, you know. Because I sincerely don’t think I Want to Talk is about Arjun’s sickness at all. Or even about how he is able to pay for all those surgeries over the years, what exactly is his money situation and things like that. Sircar doesn’t bother explaining all that either, and I believe that’s just because it was not quite relevant. Arjun’s cancer, in this film, rather works as base for the narrative to be developed – and tells the story of a flawed man with certain admirable qualities. He is not quite the perfect father to Reya but he does love her in his own way. When teenager Reya has a boyfriend, he turns into quite the protective father. His actions are like that of a boomer parent, but he is not exactly controlling either. And all throughout the years, he tries his best to keep his sickness hidden from his daughter – like nothing ever happened to him. But the thing is, Reya here is quite smart. She is more like her mom than her dad, by her own admission, but the movie subtly confirms that she is her father’s daughter as well. The father-daughter relationship is the highlight of the movie here, and in some ways, reminds you of Piku (2015), Sircar’s most celebrated work which also had the relationship between a father and daughter at the heart of it. Of course the major difference here is that in Piku, the nature of the relationship was already established, but in I Want to Talk, it actually gets re-developed over many years. 

Coming back to the question in the subhead, we have already seen the treatment of Dr Deb is working for Arjun – although he has to go through a lot of struggle. And despite all of his resilience, Arjun does have his moments of doubt. Early on in a scene, he actually considers killing himself, because all these surgeries are getting to be too much for him and he is unable to see any hope. Arjun is quite the showman, so he plans to do it by driving his car off a cliff, pulling off a Thelma and Louise (very cool reference by the way). He does go ahead but is ultimately saved by nurse Nancy, who, by then, has become his friend. The character of Nancy doesn’t have much screen time but has a huge impact in the overall story. She is the catalyst behind Arjun’s development as a better person overall. And she is his savior as well, not once but twice – the second time when Arjun comes to visit her in the hospital and has a sudden heart attack.

Just like Nancy, the other supporting characters, despite their limited screen time, are all very important. There is Johnny Lever’s Johnny, a plumber-electrician hybrid (that’s not a real job but I guess so many people like Johnny exist in all parts of the world) who is always sarcastic and doesn’t ever give Arjun a free pass for his illness – it was quite refreshing to see Lever doing something other than his crass comedy. Then we have Arjun’s friend Subodh, who keeps reminding him of the situation he is in and offers moral support, even though Arjun doesn’t seem to be needing any. We get to see Arjun’s family as well – his parents seem to be exactly the kind of elitist elderly couple you find in South Calcutta, who are always curious about what their children and grandchildren are doing. There’s a scene where Arjun and his parents spot Reya with her boyfriend at the supermarket and Arjun commits the mistake of saying hello to his daughter, making her visibly awkward. At home, Reya is frustrated at her father for doing that, especially with the grandparents around, who must be dying to ask whether she is pregnant or not. Unsurprisingly, that happens just a few seconds later. It also proves that Sircar’s father-daughter tale is also doing all sorts of social commentary about parenting. When Arjun gets mad at Reya for making him drive twice to her mother’s place on the same night because she forgot to take a pair of shoes of hers and then took the wrong pair, Reya points out how difficult it is for her as well for being treated as a shuttlecock between two divorced parents. It almost feels like she is blaming both of them for even having had her, especially when they were never compatible in the first place. This is Sircar’s subtle way of mocking the age-old Indian myth that having a child can fix a marriage. When Arjun is apologetic the next morning, Reya also mentions the importance of a compatibility test before a marriage – which, I’m sure a lot of people don’t actually take.

With the movie heading towards Arjun having a revolutionary surgery – a mixture of Bi-Max surgery (the one you need to cure sleep apnea, as the movie explains) and throat scar surgery, I suspected the movie might take the conventional approach of making that the focal point for the climax. Thankfully though, Sircar treats the surgery plot in a much casual manner. Like all the other surgeries, this one also goes well for Arjun. Of course, he now has to deal with the challenge of speaking (due to the surgery) for some time. He also has to handle the death of his best friend, Subodh, who has a sudden cardiac arrest. But what actually takes a toll on him is Nancy’s suicide. It is quite hard to accept the person who once saved you from taking your own life eventually taking her on instead. The survivors’ guilt in Arjun is pretty imminent, and I suppose it only increases when, at Nancy’s funeral, one of her colleagues mentions that Nancy was there for everyone but nobody was ever there for her. It is the saddest possible thing that can happen to anyone and even though Arjun doesn’t utter a word, he is actually crushed by it. 

That’s why while Reya and anyone else can’t understand his decision to run in a marathon despite his health condition – where he can collapse any day – for Arjun it makes complete sense. He is doing this as sort of a tribute to Nancy, who is the reason he is still living and breathing. Nancy leaving him a bobblehead that looks like him (which automatically reminds me of Dwight getting one from Angela; is Shoojit Sircar a The Office fan by any chance?) with an ‘XOXO’ message is a nice touch. It is also reassuring that we have a director who is actually devoted to the story and never taking the help of melodrama to explain something. That one gift from Nancy is enough for us to realize what Arjun meant to her, if we have followed the movie carefully. 

Just like the entirety of I Want to Talk, how Arjun performs in the marathon is also something that’s hardly relevant. All that matters is him going out there and participating in it, as he tells Reya. That alone makes Arjun the winner. Expectedly, the marathon doesn’t come easy for him. Logically in his health condition it seems like an impossible thing to pull off. He gives up midway, and finally lets Reya know why he was hell bent on doing it in the first place. But now that Reya does understand what kind of a human being her father is, she takes it upon herself to make him complete the marathon. The movie also cleverly hands the responsibility of narration from Arjun to Reya here. 

I Want to Talk fittingly ends with Reya describing her father and what he truly means to her. Arjun Sen doesn’t die in the end, as he has a lot left to do. He will eventually die but even then he is gonna remain the persistent person who has beaten death ninety nine other times. I was quite glad that the movie did not take the conventional route of Arjun dying and following that with an epilogue. Instead, we see the real Arjun Sen who proudly tells the audience that despite the doctors giving him just about a hundred days to live, he has managed to live for more than ten thousand days. Sircar clearly knows how to finish telling his stories.