'Homebound' Review: Vishal Jethwa and Ishaan Khatter lend heart & depth to Ghaywan's poignant tale

The Fragile Thread of Identity

Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound is the kind of film whose trailer barely scratches the surface of what it holds inside. When the lights dim and his world unfolds, you realise how unvarnished and piercing this story is. Inspired by a real incident, Ghaywan keeps his narrative clean and linear, yet it brims with layers.

Shoaib, played with a restrained intensity by Ishaan Khatter, is a young Muslim son to an ailing father. Chandan, brought to life by the remarkable Vishal Jethwa, belongs to a Dalit family struggling to stay afloat. Both carry dreams bigger than their circumstances, yet both know the weight of their names. Chandan often hides his Valmiki surname, ticking the “general” box in forms to avoid the sting of caste discrimination. Shoaib, meanwhile, faces the casual and cruel Islamophobia that turns something as basic as a cricket match win into a jarring parade.

Their friendship is a quiet rebellion. It is not wrapped in grand gestures or dramatic declarations. It breathes in stolen bites of biryani, in playful bickering over a jar of pickles, in the simple comfort of knowing someone sees you beyond labels. But as the country shutters under the sudden terror of a pandemic, the walls of prejudice grow taller. In one of the film’s most searing moments, Shoaib is beaten by police, branded a super-spreader, a scene that echoes the Tablighi Jamaat witch-hunt of 2020.

Neeraj Ghaywan’s Lens: Gentle, Fierce, Unflinching

Ghaywan directs with a stillness that feels almost like meditation. He does not rush toward melodrama; instead, he trusts silence to speak. Long pauses stretch like unhealed wounds. The absence of a heavy background score lets the ache of each scene settle into the viewer’s chest. He captures not just the injustice of a fractured society but the stubborn humanity that refuses to be erased.

The film’s title, Homebound, is itself a quiet irony. For Shoaib and Chandan, home is not merely a place. It is a question: can they ever belong to a country that keeps reminding them of their otherness? Their journey to earn a uniform becomes something larger than a career. It becomes an exploration of what it means to be seen, to be safe, to be human.

Performances That Stay With You

Ishaan Khatter strips away every trace of glamour. His Shoaib carries both the vulnerability of a son who fears failing his father and the simmering anger of a young man who knows the world has already judged him. Vishal Jethwa is extraordinary. His eyes carry stories of quiet wrath and unspoken longing. Together, their chemistry makes the friendship feel lived-in and unforced, a bond forged not in convenience but in shared pain and quiet joy.

Janhvi Kapoor as Sudha, a young woman from a lower-caste family, adds another layer to this web of identities. Her performance is uneven at times, but in her best moments, she captures the tentative confidence of someone learning to claim her own space. The supporting cast, Shalini Vatsa as Chandan’s mother and others, provide texture and grounding, their presence a reminder that these struggles belong to families, not just individuals.

A Mirror to Society’s Unspoken Cruelties

Homebound is not content with simply telling a story. It demands that you sit with the discomfort of a society where caste and religion still dictate opportunity and dignity. A scene where Chandan’s mother, a school cook, is shamed and expelled for “polluting” the food burns like quiet fire.

The film is also a time capsule of the pandemic’s hidden wounds. While many of us remember lockdowns through dalgonas and screens, Ghaywan reminds us of those who endured the pandemic with no safety net, those whose stories rarely reached our newsfeeds. He asks, without preaching, how easily we overlook the lives that carry the heaviest burdens.

Ghaywan recalls the fear and fury of those months without resorting to sensationalism, showing how some lives were devastated while the privileged debated sourdough recipes. In one shattering moment, a woman offers the boys water when everyone else turns away, reminding us that empathy is the hardest, most radical act. By the time the heart-stopping climax arrives, Homebound has become more than a film: it is a meditation on friendship, dignity, and the silent heroism of those who keep their humanity intact in a world eager to deny it.

More Than a Film, A Quiet Call to Empathy

What makes Homebound unforgettable is that it refuses to reduce its characters to symbols of suffering. Ghaywan allows them laughter, mischief, small victories. He shows that to live under oppression is not only to endure pain but to keep dreaming despite it.

By the time the final scene unfolds, Shoaib, cradling an ailing Chandan, pleading for him to wake, it is not just the characters who are transformed. We, too, are asked to reckon with our own place in this fractured society. The film does not give easy answers. It leaves you with questions that linger long after the credits fade.

Homebound carries its silences like a second skin, and that becomes one of its quiet triumphs. Neeraj Ghaywan refuses the easy lure of swelling background scores or carefully placed songs. There are no musical cues to steer your heart; instead, the rustle of the village, the low hum of passing trains, the everyday sounds of a world on edge create their own natural symphony. This minimalism sharpens the film’s realism and lets the weight of the story and the strength of the performances speak without distraction. It’s an unvarnished portrait, far removed from the comforts of conventional Bollywood spectacle; there’s no glamour, no choreographed relief, no sudden burst of escapist thrill. What it offers instead is far more haunting: a clear-eyed reflection of how caste and religion still shape lives