I enjoyed this movie immensely. It's a finely-produced film with a touching story about the struggles with human imperfection, and the cultural elements intrigued me. I'm a musician and a dancer, so watching the unique and intricate coordination of the dances and musical interludes in the movie was educating and fascinating. Fantastic work!

During this shelter-in-place time, coming upon "His Father's Voice" was a welcome respite. I felt as though I were transported to India and got to experience the culture without fear of the dang coronavirus. Music and dance are the heart of this film, but they alone wouldn't have worked without a captivating story. The film had a very good-looking cast... which while not necessary, let's face it, who doesn't like to look a pretty women and men. More importantly, we liked and connected with the characters. An excellent film throughout.

The acting is so amateurish that it feels like the actors were just random people chosen from the streets to read lines off a script, which, just like the acting, is so amateurish that it sounds like a child wrote it. In the first five minutes, we see the main character Skanda returning to his childhood home looking like he's feeling bitersweet and nostalgic - understandable. After (only) 3 seconds of happily greeting the women he grew up with (Valli and Parvatha),he is suddenly angrily demanding to see his dad and acting as if either he doesn't remember who the women are (impossible - they were like his sister and mother) or he doesn't care about them (then why the joyful, if brief, greeting?!) ("I'm looking for my father, Jon." "Skanda, you don't recognize me?" "Where is my father." "You've grown so much..." "Please. Will you tell me where my father is!").

Bad acting might be tolerable if not for the fact that all of the characters are, for god knows what reason, wearing cartoonish fake smiles in ridiculously everything they do just like people in commercials. WHAT is the point of that?

apart from the acting and the script, another annoying element is that there's explicit exposition throughout, which, again, might be tolerable if not for the fact that the exposition is pointng out the obvious, things that even a child would have picked up. Two examples off the top of my head are, again, in the first ~20mins (at which point I simply stopped watching). After we have quite a clear idea that Skanda is this boy who grew up in India with his father Jon whom Skanda is now looking for (implying Jon has left him) Valli starts telling "Skanda" (aka the audience) the tale of Rama and how he went searching for his father who he had not seen for 12 years. As if the parallel was not obvious, Skanda remarks "wow, this is starting to sound a lot like my own story". It's just so painstakingly obvious. Now, the second example of this exposition is what made me stop watching. Skanda's father Jon is a tall white man with long blond hair, living in India among brown Indians with black hair. When Valli is showing Skanda around his own childhood home and where Jon currently lives they come across a painting of a tall white man with blond hair against a black sky, dressed the same way that we see Jon is usually dressed - and Valli points out to Skanda (aka the audience),"that's Jon.". IS IT REALLY? Even Skanda has to respond to that with, "I know.". Yes, Skanda knows, and so does the audience which the writers believe have two brain cells.

For some reason this movie (or at least the first 20 minutes that I managed to get through) irked me so much that I not only had to turn it off, but I felt the need to go online and leave this review. I've watched hundreds of movies - I'm a bit of a movie addict - but this is the first ever movie I've typed up a "review" for (I get that this is moreso an immature bashing than a civilized critique, but like I said, I'm irked).

And I think the reason I am so bothered is that this movie could have had SO much potential if the simplest of details were paid attention to. If the writer had gone over the script at least once, or the director could have grabbed at least more than just one take of the scenes, etc. The music and dancing are beautiful, there are artful shots throughout, and the story is not only intriguing and relatable but spiritually/mythologically relavent, but the people ruin it. Shame. If you're going to make such a beautiful movie, why not go over the end product at least just once? It doesn't take a keen, discerning hawk-eye to notice these easily fixable details.