'Hindi Medium' Movie Reviews/BO updates

Hindi Medium Movie Review: A Film With Which Every Indian Student & Parent Will Be Able To Relate

Hindi Medium warns you that outer polish is not enough; get your values right first!

Rating: 4/5 Stars (Four stars)

Star Cast: Irrfan Khan, Saba Qamar, Deepak Dobriyal, Swati Das, Dishita Sehgal, Amrita Singh, Sanjay Suri and Neha Dhupia (cameo)

Director: Saket Chowdhary

What's Good: Rather ask me what is not!

What's Bad: A little too dramatic at times, which is a signature style of Bollywood

Loo Break: In the first 10-15 minutes or during one of the songs

Watch or Not?: Yes

Mita and Raj Batra are a well-off couple, who are deeply in love with each other. They reside in Delhi's Chandni Chowk. Raj owns a shop where he sells first copies of designer lehengas and Mita is a homemaker. However, trouble begins in their paradise when they try to admit their daughter Piya into an English Medium school. They leave their ancestral home and move to a posh South Delhi location in an attempt to improve their status, so that they can fit in a society, where in Mita's words, English is not just a language but also class, which only a good school can provide.

The couple tries hard to fit in the high-class' society including switching to designer clothes and a dominating Mita even forces her husband to address her as honey, instead of Mitthu, which he used to call her. She wins every argument with her husband just by asking him English spellings of every English word he utters and making him feel inferior.

However, they are not greeted warmly by the residents of that housing society, where the ladies divide themselves into kitty groups based on their children's school and refuse to let their kids play with Piya as she speaks in Hindi.

Frustrated with several failed attempts at getting their daughter admitted into an English medium school, Raj and Mita move to a slum in Bharat Nagar and submit a form for their daughter Piya in the best school of the city under the BPL quota. There they meet a couple Shyam Prakash and his wife who not only help them with whatever they can but also risk their life for Piya's admission, while they are also trying to admit their son in the same school. Mita's only concern is that if her daughter fails to achieve something in life, she will get depressed and start consuming drugs. Will Piya get a chance in an English medium school? What happens to the family?

Hindi Medium Review: Script Analysis

Hindi Medium is an enjoyable and realistic tale which lands a tight slap on the face of a society which considers English as a parameter for judging people, where people are not taken seriously if they don't speak English well and they are made to feel inferior. The film is a wakeup call for a society where if you are not well versed in English, you will be mocked, laughed at. A very well-written script!

Zeenat Lakhani scores in delivering this serious message in the garb of humour and comedy. While, the film is thoroughly enjoyable, it is tailor made for the Indian society and shows how parents struggle to get their kids admitted to reputed schools, how they suffer from a constant fear of failure, from a fear of not fitting in the class' and how education has shockingly become a booming business in the country. The film warns us that outer polish is not enough; get your values right first.

The dialogues are hilarious and keep you entertained throughout. The plot gets a bit predictable towards the end and the film glorifies government schools, which are looked down upon in our society. The script in some aspects bears resemblance to Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy's Bengali film Ramdhanu but those who have watched both, will surely know that the similarities are not major.

Hindi Medium Review: Star Performance

Irrfan Khan and Deepak Dobriyal compete with each other in terms of performance. Irrfan never fails to impress and his comic timing deserves mention.

Pakistani actress Saba Qamar is impressive as a dominating wife and a mother who is desperate to ensure good (read English) education for her daughter so that she does not lag behind in the rat race.

Amrita Singh plays a strict but corrupt headmistress and she does it with such finesse that I seriously cannot imagine anybody else in that role.

Hindi Medium Review: Direction, Music

Saket Chaudhary's last directorial Shaadi Ke Side Effects might have failed to leave an impact but with his latest one, Hindi Medium, he does not give a chance to complain. The film shows that our society is divided into two parts" those who speak English and those who don't.

Even though the film gets a bit too dramatic in a few scenes, but if you choose to ignore that, it is entertaining. Hindi Medium draws so much from reality that many people will be able to relate to it. Irrfan Khan is surely the best choice for this film.

Suit Suit composed and sung by Guru Randhawa feat. Arjun and Ek Jindari sung by Taniskaa Sanghvi are my favourite numbers from the album. Irrfan and Dishita Sehgal's dance with Tarey Gin Gin is a delight to watch!

Hindi Medium Review: The Last Word

This is a film with which every Indian student and parent will be able to relate. Kudos to the makers for highlighting the way education is being turned into a business (which only the rich can afford) in our country. At the same time, it points out the plight of government schools where the major concern is not just lack of infrastructure and facilities but also the lack of students. I go with four stars for this one!

Hindi Medium. Irrfan Khan and Pakistani actress Saba Qamar play the lead in the movie that takes a scathing look at how screwed up the school admission process has become in India. So has the movie managed to make its point clear in its presentation? Read our review ahead to find out...We have had our share of epic period dramas, biopics and rom-coms in the past few months. Now it is the time for a satire. Bollywood has never done this genre much justice, but Saket Chaudhary, director of Pyaar Ke Side Effects and its sort of sequel, Shaadi Ke Side Effects, tries his luck here with Hindi Medium. Irrfan Khan and Pakistani actress Saba Qamar play the lead in the movie that takes a scathing look at how screwed up the school admission process has become in India. So has the movie managed to make its point clear in its presentation? Read our review ahead to find out...

What's it about"

Irrfan Khan) is a garment businessman based in Chandni Chowk, who deals with original imitations of Manish Malhotra and Sabyasachi's creations. Though he is not very well educated, his over-bearing, demanding wife Mita (Saba Qamar) has done her schooling from a local English medium school. However, she wants her daughter to study in one of Delhi's five topmost schools. To ensure that, she even nags her husband into agreeing to move to a richer neighbourhood and change their style of living. However despite all their efforts, their daughter doesn't get admission in four schools. In a desperate attempt to keep his wife happy, Raj tries to get his kid admitted to the remaining one school through gareeb quota by nefarious means. But in a twist of fate, they had to really move into a poor neighbourhood for a month to validate their admission status or land themselves in jail for fraud. As they live among the poor, they realise they have got their priorities about life all wrong." data-reactid="40" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;">Raj Batra (Irrfan Khan) is a garment businessman based in Chandni Chowk, who deals with original imitations of Manish Malhotra and Sabyasachi's creations. Though he is not very well educated, his over-bearing, demanding wife Mita (Saba Qamar) has done her schooling from a local English medium school. However, she wants her daughter to study in one of Delhi's five topmost schools. To ensure that, she even nags her husband into agreeing to move to a richer neighbourhood and change their style of living. However despite all their efforts, their daughter doesn't get admission in four schools. In a desperate attempt to keep his wife happy, Raj tries to get his kid admitted to the remaining one school through gareeb quota by nefarious means. But in a twist of fate, they had to really move into a poor neighbourhood for a month to validate their admission status or land themselves in jail for fraud. As they live among the poor, they realise they have got their priorities about life all wrong.

What's hot"

Irrfan Khan is terrific as always using his dry comic sense of timing in the best possible manner. Even in the emotional scenes, he packs a punch, especially with his speech in the climax. Saba Qamar surprises you with a very effective performance, acting as a perfect foil to Irrfan's act. I was disappointed with what Raees did with Mahira's role, but Saba gets a very meaty part with a nice arc and she does complete justice to it. The kid who plays their daughter is very cute. Among the supporting cast, Tilottama Shome as the admission consultant and Amrita Singh as the business-minded principal stand out. The children's song that plays in the scene where they showed the poor conditions of a government school will make you misty-eyed." For a satire to work, the humour and the writing should be very effective. Thankfully in the case of Hindi Medium, the movie has succeeded to a large extent in justifying these two aspects. The dialogue, especially those delivered by Irrfan, are witty and manage to elicit a chuckle every now and then. When Bollywood has often hesitated in taking on social issues fearing controversies, I am glad that Hindi Medium takes on one of the most pertinent issues affecting our society - the circus behind school admissions. The writers have tried to address the issues without getting too preachy (except for the climax), and they have done it in a light-hearted manner. Some of the events shown in the movie may look exaggerated, but like Naagin, the soap Raj watches, we Indians love exaggeration. There are scenes where the movie highlights the corruption in this system. It feels shocking to see how rich take advantage of the quota reserved for poor for their own needs. Like one character in the movie says, they have taken their jobs, future, essentials and now they are even hijacking their chance for education. However, it's not just the administrators of educational systems that the movie is poking fun at, it's our own mentality. Having studied in a government school myself and turning out okay (I guess), I can't understand this generation's obsession with sending kids to only convent schools even if it can make them struggle a lot with the finances. While Mita's adamance in getting her daughter an admission in a posh school may look irritating, I have my own friends and colleagues who have shown the same kind of behaviour. Why, even the people with lesser means in the movie are shown having an aversion for their kids to go and study in a government school. We forget the fact that some lessons are not learnt in four walls or on laptops and tabs, but by mingling with friends and even falling down once too often. And that's the message Saket succeeds in imparting, especially in the second half. While the first has many LOLs (as one girl in the movie calls it) moments, the second half has some emotional ones that will touch. Most of them come from Deepak Dobriyal, a really fine actor whom we have so underused. If he made you laugh in Tanu Weds Manu, he will move you to tears in a couple of scenes here. He is a real scene-stealer in the second half. Coming to the main leads, Irrfan Khan is terrific as always using his dry comic sense of timing in the best possible manner. Even in the emotional scenes, he packs a punch, especially with his speech in the climax. Saba Qamar surprises you with a very effective performance, acting as a perfect foil to Irrfan's act. I was disappointed with what Raees did with Mahira's role, but Saba gets a very meaty part with a nice arc and she does complete justice to it. The kid who plays their daughter is very cute. Among the supporting cast, Tilottama Shome as the admission consultant and Amrita Singh as the business-minded principal stand out. The children's song that plays in the scene where they showed the poor conditions of a government school will make you misty-eyed.

IANS May 18, 2017 Last Updated at 19:09 IST