Saturday, March 24, 2018
Hichki
Hiccups To Go
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Siddharth P.Malhotra’s Hichki gives
Rani Mukerji a fine role in the adaptation of Front Of The Class, based on Brad
Cohen’s book about his struggles with Tourette’s syndrome, and then stuffs it
with every Bollywood cliché.
Naina Mathur suffers from the
neurological condition that causes strange physical and vocal ticks. She was ridiculed as a kid, her father
(Sachin Pilgaonkar) walked out because he could not deal with it. She is
supported by her mother (Supriya Pilgaonar), brother (Hussain Dalal) and a kind
teacher (Vikram Gokhale in a one-scene cameo). When she grows up, Naina
(Mukerji) wants to be teacher, and keep her hopes up even as eighteen schools
reject her, their question being how can a woman with a speech impediment
teach?
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She is finally given a job at her alma mater St Notker’s, and assigned to a 9F a class with 14 children from a
slum. Apparently, the elite school is forced to admit them because of Right To
Education (RTE) rules, but they are all dumped in one class that no teacher can
survive. (Just one RTE class,what about other kids?) The unruly kids take bets on how long Naina will stick around. The principal (Shiv Subramaniam) is sympathetic, but
another teacher Mr Wadia (Neeraj Kabi) believes that the “municipality garbage”
should not be in their school.
The kids have no hopes from an
education, so do not care about studies; the teachers and fellow student look
down on them. From Naina’s problems, the film becomes a much overdone underdog
story. When faced with a class that
bullies and harasses her, Naina wears her self-righteous cloak and plays saint
to Wadia’s sneering demon. She uses platitudes like “There are no bad students,
only bad teachers,” and tries unconventional methods like open-air classes to
get the rebellious kids to understand the value of education.
The promo of Hichki is enough to give an indication of how the plot will
proceed, and it runs exactly on the To
Sir With Love track. The writers and
director have a touching faith in a formal education system, as if passing high
school with good marks is all it takes to break down the doors of class
privilege.
Anyway, this is a mainstream film,
and a vanity project for Rani Mukerji, so it okay for the script to be
superficial as long as the actress can give a wonderful performance, which she
does. If the film is worth watching,
it’s because of her I and the generic feel-goodishness that invariably pleases audiences. There’s one remarkably offbeat aspect of Hichki though, Naina does not lean on man to help her, so there is no romantic track—she is the hero of her own story.
Labels: Cinemaah
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