Hindi Medium Movie Review : What works for Hindi Medium is its simplicity. What works against it is its simplicity.
Shubha Shetty Saha
19 May 2017, 8:55 IST
What works for Hindi Medium is its simplicity. What works against it is its simplicity. Director Saket Chaudhury gives us a delightful slice of life story, but he goes about the issue in hand with such a simplistic manner and resorts to the easy route of stereotyping that it messes up the narrative to a large extent. Add to that the story that he's telling us, lost its relevance a few years ago.
Any relieved parent would tell you that those days of standing overnight in a serpentine queue outside prestigious schools are behind us, thanks to 'international schools' that have mushroomed in every nook and corner of the metro cities. If you have the monies, getting an admission in a reputed school is easy.
So, the struggle of a wealthy yet non English speaking store owner, (Irrfan Khan) and his wannabe high society wife Mithoo (Saba Qamar) to get their child Priya into a good school seems outdated. And in the age of internet and every other school in gali nukkad boasting of their own websites, the couple desperately seeking their daughter's name on a paper stuck on a notice board in school speaks of naivety and inexperience.
The cause might be somewhat outdated, but Chaudhury scores big time when he narrates a tender love story of a man who would do anything to see his woman happy. Raj has been smitten by Mittoo since their teenage years and he continues being so in love that he panders to her every reasonable and unreasonable whims. The script, however, takes a lazy , stereotypical route when it condemns all rich people as snobbish and hard hearted and attempts to tell us that humanity and kindness can only be found in a poor person's heart and home.
A pity really because the ensemble cast that Chaudhury had the privilege of, deserved a far better story. Irrfan Khan, with his utterly charming and easy performance takes this to another level. He is well supported by Deepak Dobriyal. Dobriyal deserves to be seen more often on screen. Watching these two on screen together is worth the ticket money. Saba Qamar is decent.
Stars : Three