WINNER ALL THE WAY

Chhichhore

STARRING: Sushant Singh Rajput, Shraddha Kapoor, Varun Sharma

DIRECTOR: Nitesh Tiwari

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An obvious, all-round winner, Chhichhore is a fun film with a nottoo-complicated message. Despite riding cliches, it is impressively written, directed and performed.

Dangal maker Nitesh Tiwari's film ticks several boxes. It is topical in the way it highlights the ever-increasing pressure on teenagers to excel in entrance exams. Sweetly nostalgic, it sets up a rollercoaster campus ride, and is melodramatic in doling out its coming-of-age theme. Beneath the boisterous laugh moments lies a quiet comment, too: in our mad chase of aspirations and ambitions, we often ignore a basic truth - the most important thing in life is life itself, and the necessity to live it to the fullest.

Tiwari and his co-writers (Piyush Gupta and Nikhil Malhotra) treat the tale with finesse. The screenplay unfolds without fuss, and yet leaves an impact. The dialogues, insanely hilarious to subtly dramatic, never lose touch with realism. cerebral tone all through, unfolding at a languid pace and asserting its opinion with quiet assurance.

Annirudh (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Maya (Shraddha Kapoor), are successful engineers and a divorced couple. Their worlds come crashing when their only son Raghav attempts suicide after failing in engineering entrance exam.

Anni hits upon a crazy idea to revive his son's interest in life. He tells Raghav the story of his days in college, of how heand his friends including Maya, turned from losers to winners. For the right cinematic impact, the friends will arrive too, when Anni calls them to be at Raghav's side as their story unfolds.

The objective of the film was never to establish who is guilty and who is not, you realise as the story draws to its end. In life there are never clear victims and villains.

A courtroom drama thrives or collapses depending on writing. You always knew this film had an advantage in this context, seeing Manish Gupta's name as scriptwriter. Gupta, who wrote Ramgopal Varma's Sarkar and directed The Stoneman Murders, has quietly carved a distinct idiom as a storyteller.

The interrogations, arguments and retorts that dominate the courtroom exchanges wholly benefit from Gupta's creativity. There are moments powerful enough to virtually transport you to the courtroom of the high-profile, incamera case.

Akshaye's is one of the finest male performances Bollywood has seen

Oscillating between a grim present and a carefree past, the story sets up two very different coming-of-age sagas. There is Raghav's plot, rendered with bittersweet sensitivity - fluctuating between hopelessness and hope. Then there is the story of Annirudh's college days, where the youngsters learn to believe they can win. These two very unlikely parallel subplots are balanced well, in a seamless entirety.

With Chhichhore, Tiwari truly announces his arrival in the big league. In a rare Bollywood commercial film, driven by story more than star power, the art of storytelling triumphs.

Chhichhore manages to hold attention throughout its near two-andhalf hour runtime, despite basically in recent times. Cold fury, mockery, indulgence or irony - you name it, he executes it with a simple tweak of gaze. Surprisingly, it is Richa Chadha who suffers - struggling in most parts to come to terms with a character that seems inadequate all through. She comes alive in individual scenes, though, thanks to her proven screen presence.

Rahul Bhat is impressive for the way he balances Rohan Khurana's arrogance and vulnerability. Meera Chopra, cast as the young costume designer Anjali who acts as the trigger for the tale, sadly gets very little to do.

Section 375 makes you think seriously about an important contemporary issue without getting preachy about it, and yet never slipping into the flippant mode. If anything, one hopes that the film will rejuvenate popular interest in the ongoing conversation about women's safety and laws pertaining to the subject.

Vinayak Chakravorty

being predictable, feel-good fare. Of course, there are flaws. It seems rather farfetched, for instance, that Raghav should learn about his parents' college days after so many years, only when he is battling for life in hospital. Also, Shraddha Kapoor in the present-day track looks far from convincing as a teenager's mother.

A well-written script always accommodates strong characters for its actors. In this film, each major actor gets two distinct phases of life to essay - as a 20-something college-goer and as a 40-something middle-aged person. While Sushant is effortless in his portrayal of both ages, Shraddha is a perfect fit as the young Maya.

The delightful impact, however, comes from the supporting cast of Annirudh's friends - Sexa (Varun Sharma), Acid (Naveen Polishetty), Derek (Tahir Raj Bhasin), Bevda (Saharsh Shukla) and Mummy (Tushar Pandey). Each gets at least a couple of well-penned scenes to showcase their talent, and each one impresses. Together, they underline the goodnatured irreverence that is inherent in the film's title.

Vinayak Chakravorty