Chhichhore

I had written this in the hangover of the film, written a day after coming out of the theater in September 2019, and had left it in the drafts. So I choose to leave it unedited as such.

It’s kind of odd when the rich claim that money isn’t everything. Yet, who else can make that statement.

Few thoughts on Chhichhore

1. One of the scenes where I was moved, and where, I believe the reason for the film to exist (beyond pragmatics) exists, is when an old Anni (Sushant Singh Rajput) wants to say that maybe the IIT tag isn’t exactly worth the hype (sitting in a posh house in Mumbai). That an exam, with a success ratio of less than a decimal percent, isn’t something that should be considered a logical path to life. And a complete reliance on that would obviously create an unhealthy amount of pressure – an amount enough to take lives. It’s a discussion I have had with an unhealthy amount of passion – with family and otherwise. Yet I, like that the writer/director and characters on screen exist on the right side of the system – people who have benefitted from the IIT system, and one who can afford to make those statements – financially, and emotionally. It is a duty of those who have succeeded, by luck and merit (Does merit exist without privilege anyways?), to tell everyone that IIT/Higher Studies might not be exactly a life-changing thing if it comes at significant life-altering costs. And there I believe lies the heart of the film, but the film doesn’t exactly land, because –
   
2. The empathy of the film doesn’t really lie with losers – actually they aren’t really losers, just the underdogs of the universe. There isn’t really anything at stake emotionally established here in the life of H4 people that can bear the weight of the life-and-death situation that the narrative wants to compare it with. For the H4 ones, GC is just another battle with different stakes. One of the fun (and believable) joke come from the scene where most of the hostel mates aren’t really interested in competing for the GC, and then simply had to be baited with free milkshakes. This isn’t really a Student of the Year universe where the competition is an all consuming high-stake situation, where characters are primarily defined as achievers/losers from a simplistic series of competitions. It has humans closer to reality, and people with true buddy relationships, and has a sense of nostalgia and the spirit of coming back together, something like IT/IT-2.
   
   Then, the pressure at stake in the hospital situation, is one that seems valid only by a movie logic – one is forced to accept the stakes. The doctor has to continuously say that the situation is grave because the narrative isn’t really saying so.
   
3. Genuine representation has power, and is quite uplifting. It is such a joy to see my hostel room door on a large screen, the places in the play ground I have sat in, represented close to how I experienced it, looking how they appeared to me. For a considerate amount of time, we have witnessed colleges that seem unlike any actual Indian colleges, and thus seem like closed universes with their own rules, quite different from real ones. Thus, it feels uplifting when the college and the people look ugly, real and thus connectable. And thus it becomes a joykill, when the adults talk like only other film characters. They exist to make points. Movie like points. It is in the more absurd moments that the film shines – the weightlifting sequence or the mess-worker-as-coach sequence – the hint of something is funnier than a real one. The nostalgia is spot on, it is the adults that sound un-adult.