Hichki

I am not saying the new Rani Mukerji movie Hichki is an entirely fresh or novel creation. But there are some movies that are so good in terms of performance that you get that emotional warmth at the end and you ultimately end up liking it even after it being a template. Hichki from Sidharth P Malhotra works because of two reasons in my opinion; firstly because of the fabulous casting and secondly because of the indie vibe in its treatment.

Naina Mathur is this young woman who aspires to be a teacher but gets rejected from everywhere due to her physical condition called Tourette syndrome. Finally a school who was struggling to get a teacher to teach a bunch of 14 students who were from the slums decides to take her, purely out of desperation. With a bunch of students who never had faith in them and were only interested in bullying, Naina had a huge task ahead of her. How she manages to do that is what Hichki talking about.

“Oh! What a story” would be a reaction most people won’t have at the end of Hichki. Because it is in a way an amalgamation of themes and treatments we have seen in films like Chak De India and Taare Zameen Par. Naina Mathur’s challenges are the compilation of what Kabir Khan and Nikumb faced. The screenplay has these partially predictable and cheesy looking moments that doesn’t look that flawed because of the way it has been performed and executed. The chemistry between Rani and the kids helps the film a lot in having a sensible feel even though most of the developments are on the filmy side.

The performance of Rani Mukherji is fabulous and it was great to see her getting a fair amount of space and scope in a character. She and the wonderfully talented kids are the pillars of this otherwise predictable feel good drama. Sparsh Khanchandani as Oru and Harsh Mayar as Aatish were particularly fabulous among the junior star cast. Neeraj Kabi was also nice as the pessimistic arrogant teacher Wadia.

Sidharth P Malhotra does know how to keep it grounded. While the movie feels a bit breezy on a screenplay level we eventually root for each character. Like I already said, the story here is a tried and tested one, but because of the genuinely honest performances, the movie gets in to that zone of feel goodness easily. The frames are perfect for the kind of treatment they have applied and the background score was also good. This would be perhaps that rare occasion were I felt like congratulating the casting director of the film.

Hichki is that typical feel good movie with performances that makes the developments look real. I was a happy person at the end of watching this movie and I guess that’s what we all look for in certain films.

Rating: 3/5