Review
Sankalp is a film that wears its idealism like a badge, and director Hrishikesh Mukerji clearly believes in the purity of Rakesh's rebellion against the suffocating materialism of his world. The problem is that the execution muddles what could have been a sharp critique into something frustratingly self-righteous. Rajesh Khanna brings brooding intensity to the role, capturing that intoxicating arrogance of youth convinced it alone understands morality—but the film never quite decides whether we're supposed to admire this or question it. The supporting cast, particularly in portraying the family's dismissal of Rakesh's concerns, feels one-dimensional; they're obstacles rather than fully realized people with their own legitimate perspectives. What doesn't work is how the narrative treats his abandonment of Geeta—it's played as noble sacrifice when it reads more like cowardice masquerading as principle.
Where Sankalp finds its footing is in capturing the authentic spiritual restlessness of its era, that genuine mid-70s search for meaning that extended beyond India's borders and into communes and counter-culture movements. The cinematography and music underscore this beautifully, and there are moments—rare, but they exist—where the film transcends preachiness and actually explores the contradiction between idealistic philosophy and human responsibility. But these moments are drowned out by lengthy philosophical monologues that feel more like sermon than drama. The film's fatal f
Storyline
Rakesh is this brilliant college kid who aces his exams and has a gorgeous fiancée-to-be in Geeta, plus a loving family and a cushy business empire waiting for him. Everything's perfect on paper—his dad, his brother Shyam, even his sister-in-law Kamla are thrilled about the engagement. But here's the thing: Rakesh is absolutely haunted by the injustice he sees everywhere, the way rich people crush the poor, and how God just watches it all happen in silence. He starts questioning everything and everyone around him, desperately searching for answers within his own family, but they shut him down completely.
His dad and brother just want him to jump into the family business and make money, but Rakesh can't stomach it—there's black money involved, corruption, phoniness everywhere he looks. So he stops seeing Geeta, completely ghosts her, and when his sister-in-law tracks him down, she finds him hanging with a group of hippies, totally disillusioned and searching for something real. When Kamla confronts him, Rakesh throws it in her face that he won't marry Geeta because he refuses to be trapped—he needs freedom, true freedom, whatever that means.
So Rakesh does the unthinkable and abandons everything: his family, his bride-to-be, his comfortable life, his entire future. He runs away to join his hippie friends, desperately chasing some deeper meaning to existence that he can't find in the material world around him. The burning question becomes: will this restless idealist ever find what he's searching for, or is he just running away from reality itself?