Chhichhore Film Review

When you are making a film centred around college life then there are few things that you need to have according to the unspoken rules set by Three Idiots – Pressure, athletic competition, hostel fun, and suicide (or at least attempted suicide). Nitesh Tiwari’s Chhichhore has all four ingredients but still fails to create magic.

The movie starts with introducing us to the character of Anirudh (Ayushman Khurana). The wide shots director use to frame Anirudh in his well-endowed condo screams the void in his life. Soon you are introduced to his son Raghav, who has kept his two friends up at 3 am worrying about the entrance exam results. Raghav fails the exams and commits suicide and that’s when Anirudh, his wife Maya (Shradha Kapoor) and his seven friends join him for a college reunion at the hospital to give hope to Raghav by telling him the stories about their college life and what a looser they were.

Now before we talk any further, lets us introduced to an equation ‘The emotional involvement of the audience is directly proportional to the stakes in the story’ for example if two people exchange bag in a scene, the audience won’t be that interested. But if that same bag has a time bomb it then?

Screenplay and Dialogue

Remember the equation in previous pera? That’s how the director keeps you engage, by increasing and reducing the stakes in the story. And this is exactly where Chhichhore’s screenplay fails. The minute the story starts to rope you in, the stakes are dropped and the films lose the intensity leaving you with a feeling of khoda pahad nikil chuhiya. What’s worst about the movie is the bipolar intercuts. While you are going through a sad intense scene you are thrown into a happy scene where people busy cracking jokes about life and you are left emotionally confused. However, this bipolar screenplay was saved by the witty dialogues. The dialogues which are supposed to support the character was on the contrary supported by the character. Therefore, many dialogues end up sounding fake despite the best delivery by the actor.

Direction and Cinematography

Nitesh Tiwari has directed some great films like Dangal but in Chhichhore his directions came out quite flat. Lack of camera moments, unbalanced compositions and frames that failed to immerse us in the emotions of characters made the story visually very flat. His use of brown tone for college shots and Anirudh’s home gives a very old nostalgic feeling, while his clinical white and green in the hospital makes you feel concerned. 

Acting

Shushant’s expressive and excessive use of hand gestures and body movement was detached from the older version of his character. It flat out revealed that Sushant didn’t know much about older Anirudh as he did about the younger Anirudh. The fact that not much has been said about the old Anirudh somewhat suggests that the writer failed to ask the right questions about the character.

Shardha Kapoor as Maya was like Shradha has any other character. Her tragic attempts of dialogue delivery make you wonder if Tushar Kapoor was better in Golmaal. But, if you look closely into her eyes you will see her hesitation as an actor. Her expressions give away that she is not fully convicted of her character. All of this work together to make her character and her acting not-so-great.

Varun Sharma’s comic timing was as good as ever but this generic role did not present him with many challenges. Hence, the actor seems to be stagnant in his acting and his predicted to be the Rajpal Yadav of his generation.

Overall the film is a good time pass and can tickle your funny bones but in the end, you will walk out of the theatre feeling unsatisfied

Star: 2.5 Star