In the last one year, Bollywood has declared a simple mandate when it comes to love and modern relationships- dudes want sex (and an occasional shot of hypernationalism), ladies want weddings (mostly, with men who stalk and abuse them). A film that delivers both will make the audience happy and Karan Johar rich.
Shoojit ‘Piku’ Sircar’s October is not that film.
It is, actually, a well thought-out response to the Badrinaths that Bollywood dispenses with such staggering dishonesty these days. The latest Bollywood money-spinner has Tiger Shroff playing a Rambo to a simpering Disha Patani. Between the two of them, they share one expression and half-a-dozen Tanishk Bakshi songs.Which is why, Sircar telling you how more-or-less recognisable people deal with delicate feelings becomes a novelty. It becomes a brave film.
Varun Dhawan, who has emerged as the poster boy of Bollywood’s masked (and not-so-masked) misogyny in films like Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Judwaa 2, is an interesting casting choice by Sircar. You know what he is trying to do here. He is indulging in his version of engaging-with-the-right. To take the most obvious proponent of the system and tell him, in the quiet Bengali intellectual way, “Dude, this is how it’s done.”
The Bongsplaining works.
Dhawan almost comes through. He channels his inner Dhawan to be the irritable, cocky Dan of the first half. He is a hotel management intern who finds the servitude of the service industry too much of an affront to his North-Indian (male) ego. He is constantly snapping at his colleagues, being cocky with his seniors and being that churlish waiter in a restaurant who brings out the worst in you. Shiuli Iyer (Banita Sandhu), is his colleague, a quiet, almost spectral presence, who goes about doing her things with almost heartbreaking sincerity. She has the limpid vulnerability of someone who has been rebuffed. Before you can even acquaint yourself with the lead players, an accident ensures that Shiuli is knocked into a coma for most of her screen-time in the film. Dan, who somehow convinces himself that he has some stake in the tragedy that befalls the family, finds himself visiting the comatose Shiuli almost obsessively.
The humdrum of the service industry is laid out efficiently in the first few minutes of the ‘October’. Writer Juhi Chaturvedi and director Shoojit Sircar establishe the dynamics between characters through passing shots. As Shiuli carefully collects a bowl of flowers that Dan has unintentionally knocked down, he points out the pieces she has missed with matter-of-fact commands.
These scenes, in their design and ambition mirror Satyajit Ray’s celebrated ability to tell stories with economy and sincerity.
In fact, for a film that is so determinedly devoid of plot twists, where the lead characters spend most of their time in the ICU ward of a hospital, October is deceptively fast-paced.
In the second half of the film, Dhawan comes close to understanding what the role demands of him. A tranquil relinquishment of the Dhawanisms that define him.
Dan, the saviour of the half-grieving, half-healing Iyer family is not a hero. Dan, the boy who steadfastly convinces Shiuli’s mom (a brilliantly stoic Geetanjali Rao), that her daughter deserves a chance to live, is not asking for your applause. He is a man trying to grapple with the challenges that life throws at him.
One can never tell if a film like October will go down well with the Indian audience, but it sure does bode well for the Hindi film industry. If the same guy who reveled in the noxious misogyny of Badrinath Ki Dulhania is ready to be a part of October, we have hope still.
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