The discovery that Ishaan is dyslexic, by fellow sufferer and empathetic teacher Nikumbh Sir (Aamir), comes after the half-way mark, coinciding with Aamir's first appearance. Smart move, because neither Aamir's superstarry presence nor all the talk of dyslexia (neurological disorders, the inversion of letters, the difficulty with numbers, and the tenets enshrined in the sarkari (Sarva Sikhsha Abhiyan) overwhelms the movie. The ‘specialness’ of Ishaan doesn't become a label: it just underlines the film's message, “every child is special”.

And that sentiment ,and Nikumbh Sir's spiffy Mohawk cut, carries the film through its sometimes stretched, overstated passages, as well as its repetitive sequences of teachers-leave-that-kid alone. The film glosses over the long, hard and sometimes endless grind that parents and care-givers of children with ‘special needs’ get locked into, in the rapid way Ishaan climbs out of the abyss. But we don't mind, because we need the happy optimism of this just-waiting-to-be-made film. Upbeat is a good place to be. You take away Darsheel's knock-out performance, and Aamir's restrained, spirited support: watch this one with your eight-year-olds. And up.