Chhichhore Movie Review - Hurray!

ChhichhoreUA Comedy dramaDirector Nitesh TiwariCast Sushant Singh Rajput Shraddha Kapoor Varun SharmaRatingThis film is literally all in its writing Which isnt to suggest that the performers on screen mdash Sushant Singh Rajput Shraddha Kapoor Varun Sharma Tahir Raj Bhasin Naveen Polishetty and the rest mdash dont match up to the material Oh all of them do They collectively shine without doubtThe film opens with them congregated at their college hostel in the 90s Its in the next scene mdash as Rajputs leading man managestransforms to the present as a modestly dressed relatively lanky bearded bloke with saltandpepper hair talking soft looking naturally grimmature mdash when it dawns on you that the character before us is very much Nitesh Tiwari the director of this film himselfBesides his manner of speaking that Rajput has also borrowed Tiwaris vocabulary is obvious since the latter has also written the film By all means this is a semimemoirWatchChhichhore TrailerIts almost like the writerdirector at a livingroom is regaling you with anecdotes and blokes from his hostel life in an engineering campus In fact thats how this plot is also narrated in the film mdash to the lead characters son who along with the audience is hearing all of this for the first timeShould that be an issue of the script being too specific that is Hell no if you consider that the story being told is so deeply universal that I cant imagine anyone not instantly relating to it mdash whether or not theyve even been to college at all Surely weve all been through growingupIts like the way Hangover a pretty random flick in 2009 turned out to be the highestgrossing Rrated Acertified comedy in movie history Later it became the highestselling comedy DVD ever WhyThere were essentially three men recollecting all that happened one night when they stepped out and got seriously shitfaced What do three drinking buddies usually do when they meet in life Yup recollect that night when Similarly what do friends from schoolcollege inevitably do when they hang out ExactlyThey effortlessly become how old they were when they first met and go Remember this one timehellip Doesnt matter which college you went to Theres no way you havent met among seniors or classmates characters from this film like Anni Rajput Derek Bhasin pornaddict Sexa Sharma Acid Polishetty Maya Kapoor et al in some form or the otherChhichhore is the sort of film that we can all add to with our own versions of the same story mdash a usergenerated series if you like This has the makings of one Youve probably navigated the same rite of passage mdash from ragging to enrichment through deep bondsfriendships that last foreverWhys this unique Because I cant recall any Hindi mainstream movie in the colour of its language firstrate dialogues and the tone of its very being thats managed to capture what its actually like to be on an Indian campus mdash freshy fresher onwards It is in that sense polaropposite to the wilful dumbfery of say Student Of The Year SOTY that had as little to do with India as a campus For its time Mansoor Khans Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar JJWS might appear close to this but more so for a similar joy of life Hip Hip Hurray HHH remains my underrated favouriteSpeaking of which one of Quentin Tarantinos gyanfull screenwriting tips is to fit a script into the frame of a genre Without that enjoying the novelistic process he says he could keep writing a film forever mdash ending up with a sevenhour featureChhichhore mdash a lil like HHH JJWS SOTY mdash you must know is a sports film It is set in what seems like the Indian Institute of Technology IIT The friendscharacters as you know age through the script Tiwaris last feature was the incredible Aamir Khan blockbuster Dangal Comparisons to the Rajkumari Hirani pathbreaker 3 Idiots also starring Khan is inevitableHeres the key difference though 3 Idiots was all about screwing college pursuing your dream Which is all fine and a point welltaken Chhichhore by the looks of it argues that there is in fact far more to college than examscores and education Its actually outside the classroom that you derive most of lifes precious lessons mdash among fellow travellers equally insecure on the same boat mdash learning to row as you go along often laughing all the wayAnd who are these that youre with in this movie anyway Chhichhore supposedly mdash so beautifully placed in the 90s strutting around in their Flying MachineNewport type loose jeans Casio watches devouring DebonairPlayboy scribbling with their Reynolds pensWhat does Chhichhore mean Dont think this North Indian slang has a direct English translation Unhinged is the closest I can come up with Which is really what we all are for that short span of adulthood when our greatest concerns are beating the collegehostelblockboygirlnextdoor at basketballchessdebatequizcrush whatever that you were so into that your whole existence depended on it Being with friends of course mattered the most And nature conspires to make that happen in ways that it doesnt ever thereafterI know mdash nostalgias an exaggeration and all that But this is the kind of writingfilm that genuinely makes you want to relive mdash in this case go back to college Okay think will just go back and watch this movie all over again instead Much easierAlso ReadSajid Nadiadwala Chhichhore is a gift to my sons Subhan and SufyanCatch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates