3 Idiots

Rating : 7/10
Release Date : 24th Dec, 2009
Time : 170 minutes
Director & Writer : Raju Hirani; Music : Shantanu Moitra
Starring : Aamir Khan, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Boman Irani, Omi, Kareena Kapoor

Welcome to a world where ‘Aal Izz Well’, a world where everything sorts itself out, and almost as in a fairy story, miracles happen just when you need them to. Watch this film because it makes you laugh, is very engaging and because somewhere the point it makes around the education system is true. Don’t watch it if you’re expecting a good replication of Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Five Point Someone’ (this is only very very loosely based on the book) or a real, grounded story from where you can draw upon lessons for life.


This is the story about Rancho (Aamir), a person who is a bit of a dreamer, thinks differently to the rest, is not interested in the ‘rat race’ our education system has become but rather the joy of learning, the joy of invention and the pleasure of new ideas / machines. He inspires at least two people to change and think like him. Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman), his room mates, who despite warnings from the Dean / parents / the system (their grades are not exactly inspiring), they staunchly remain true to Rancho’s philosophy. The Dean (Boman), is an interestingly sketched character, a great believer in the competitive nature of the Indian education system and not exactly a fan of Rancho.


Other characters are Chatur (Omi, the stereotypical engineer who dreams of great grades, megabucks and green cards) and Pia (Kareena), the Dean’s daughter, a feisty girl and convert to Rancho’s way of thought. MM, the dorm boy is another interesting person we get to know, as are Kilobyte and Megabyte and their mom, Gigabyte.


I wish life was as simple as Rancho made out. I wish it was as easy to top an engineering college, life’s issues resolved themselves as easily as shown in the film. The second half, which had a surprise identity crisis thrown in, raised some problems which it was implausible that were not discovered / resolved earlier. But the humour / fun keeps you going through it all.

The Teacher’s Day speech, delivered with great verve and gusto by Omi was a true hold your stomach and laugh out loud moment, one of the highlights of the film for me. The black & white way of showing poverty, Aamir’s definition of a book in the first lecture, Kareena’s choice of a ‘price tag’ husband and her surprising drunk attack on Gujarati snack food names, old jokes about the NASA pen or ‘do you know who I am’, were all good fun.


I thought Aamir overacted a bit, there was a slight air of pretense around him, but nothing which detracted too seriously from the film. Everyone else did a stellar job.

My father said after watching it that if you’re willing to suspend disbelief, its an enjoyable film. That’s a pretty fair way of putting it, after all, we do the same for Bond films and a lot of action thrillers. Its just that I didn’t expect to be doing it for a rom com set in an engineering college….

Parineeta

Rating : 8/10
Running Time : 130 Minutes
Release Date : June ‘2005
Director & Co-writer : Pradeep Sarkar; Writer : Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (author, 1914 novella) ; Music : Shantanu Moitra
Starring : Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Vidya Balan, Raima Sen, Dia Mirza
This is a film that reminds us of the strange capacity we humans have to seek unhappiness. We may have everything, all the people we love around us, yet we find ways to make ourselves miserable. Parineeta (translation : The Married Woman, based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic novella) is a tragedy of sorts but not one that’s excessively gloomy or depressing.

It describes the relationship between Shekhar (Saif) and Lolita (Vidya Balan’s debut), inseparable friends & neighbours despite the class gap that yawns between them. Saif is a musically inclined rich kid in a household that is dominated ruthlessly by his businessman father. He loves the piano, keeps trying to compose new tunes and describes himself less as a businessman, more a musician. He finds, right from childhood, an able companion in arms in Lolita. She is the daughter of a middle class, out of work / almost retired father, is a natural at music (according to Shekhar) and is the life and soul of her household (competent, efficient and yet fun). She and Shekhar enjoy a great rapport, to the extent that he gives her the keys to his cupboard and she is free to take money (petty cash) whenever she needs it, without asking for permission.

There are two major events that occur in the film. First is a loan that Shekhar’s father gives to Lolita’s when he needed money and in return gets their house, which is worth much more than the loan amount, as collateral. Lolita’s father knows, especially since he is out of a job, that there is a slim chance of him returning the money and so it weighs heavily on him and his other family members. The other is the arrival of Girish (Sanjay Dutt), the brother of another neighbour, a businessman from London (owns steel mills), a quiet, soft-spoken yet full of life person, who falls head over heels for Lolita. Most importantly, his arrival also causes the equations between Shekhar’s and Lolita’s households to change. To what extent, you’ll have to watch to find out…

Parineeta is one of the movies where every actor fits their part perfectly – you cannot imagine any other actor in their roles. However, even more rarely, you also find it difficult to imagine that actor in any other role, so credible are all the performances. I remember feeling the same way, many years ago, when I saw Dustin Hoffman in Rainman – I ran out to get another Dustin movie as soon as it finished as I couldn’t imagine him as anything but an autistic savant. Sanjay’s portrayal of Girish is so nicely done (I rate this as one of his finest performances) that you cannot imagine him anymore as a gangster or ruffian. Vidya Balan is excellent as Lolita, fits the part of a Bengali beauty effortlessly and Saif gives the first hints of his true acting abilities with his role as Shekhar. Even Dia Mirza plays her part as rich, spoilt kid with nonchalance – the joke about the 6 cooks or 12 was brilliantly told.

Parineeta almost seems like a musical score, with a certain lyrical quality to it. It begins with a flourish, is sweet and innocent at first, has a beautiful mid-piece and then ends with a fitting crescendo. It makes for compulsive viewing, with a lovely recreation of Calcutta in the 60’s and 70’s. Enjoy.