Hindi Medium is a satire on India’s current education system. While there are people who are against reservation system and wish to eradicate it completely, there are some who clearly think otherwise. Even though it’s a topic debatable, that’s not supposed to be the actual theme of the movie. It is how the rich have been trampling down the poor by hogging on their bread.
Hindi Medium tries to show the rich in their own light of abomination and how detestable they become in doing so. But it ends up trundling down some unrealistic territories, that makes it gradually dwindle down by the end. Also, it fails to tend to a lot of other sub-plots that it just leaves open ended.
The Plot of Hindi Medium (Spoilers Ahead)
The movie lurches forward with some brilliant comedy and comic timing that comes straight from Irrfan Khan. who plays Raj Batra. He is a natural at it and you can see him not even try. While Saba Qamar, who plays Mita Batra, is chosen to be a nagging element steering her husband’s life into making rash decisions. Her obsession to live a life King Size plucks them out of their house and places them amongst the affluent. The high society is like a gaudy display of pretence where no one believes in the institution of letting lose. It is a biased picture of restrained people and it isn’t pretty.
Then comes the question of their only child’s education. She wishes her the best the country has to offer, and so with hopes to put their daughter in a prestigious school starts their own charade of becoming something they are not. There are some blunt elements in the movie whom when you listen to, you are forced to say:
C’mon who talks like that?
Hindi Medium shows us the ugly picture of the hassle you have to put up with to get admission forms for your children. Long queues, delinquencies, and corruption, it is all in there. Not trying to fight it off and giving in just to make her wife happy, Raj is like a drum who beats himself.
Putting on a Mask
Finally, finding a way to admit their child via the government seats reserved for the destitute, and to prove to the scholastic reviewing detective, that the family were indeed poor and not rich, they start living in a dilapidated house surrounded by the poor.
Deepak Dobriyal plays the guy named Shyam Prakash who calls himself “traditionally destitute”, and just for a gag takes pride in it too. He has been typecasted and plugged in based on his humour and the way he pulls things up with his powerful acting. While all of it is intentionally kept fun and light, you can’t unsee how Saket uses subtle gimmicks to display the plight of the poor in India, and the difficulties they face on a daily basis.
Deepak, gullible as he was, buys into their lies, befriends them and helps them by being a true friend Raj never had. Raj and Mita score the admission but at the cost of Deepak’s very own child’s seat, which they then feel they were responsible for.
Feeling bad for Deepak and his family, Raj decides to take one final stand of trying to bring poor talented kids to light and to open the eyes of the corrupt, the rich and the insensitive. He eventually helps a government school to build itself up with a charitable donation, and then by winning her wife’s respect with his newly found sensitivity decides to admit their child to the same government school even though they had a seat in the elite.
There are a couple of great songs in the movie, for instance, Guru Randhawa’s Suit Suit.
You can order Hindi Medium from here:
Stereotypical Society
Even though good and bad are on completely different pedestals, Saket Chaudhary the director of Hindi Medium assumes every opulent being to be in a similar light. The rich are bad is the one flashlight he throws unknowingly as he tries to portray his take on the high society. In doing so, he deliberately demarks a line of rich and poor, and maybe fuels it up a bit too. He must understand that there is no such thing as rich being bad or poor being good. The fact is there are good people and then there are the bad ones. The latter’s presence is what we can beat with morality education.
At one point the movie seems to be heading to so many secondary subplots but unfortunately, those end up being overlooked. For example, the presence of Mita’s old college friend Kabir played by Sanjay Suri who is just there for a simple favour. Then her being smitten with ostentatious display doesn’t get a closure. Her stomping on Raj’s carefree lifestyle, subjugating and adjusting him as she pleases still remains untended even though we find them reconciling in the end.
The screenplay of the flick isn’t intelligently written and characters seem to have created for the sake of the movie plot. That being said, contrivance is at its peak in the movie. You see through everything.
By the end, you feel a lot of unrealistic things popping up, and even though Saket chooses to keep it real by showing one or two men clapping to Raj’s speech, that part still ends up becoming a forced addition.
Nevertheless, fun remains the topmost priority at all times. The flick never misses out on cracking you up for the better half. You choose to forgive it because you stay thoroughly entertained.
The Final Verdict
Hindi Medium is quite entertaining when you choose to laugh at your own plight. It addresses some of those towering issues in India that hover around a child’s education. The flick also tries to go behind the camera to show you one typical example of a household which is willing to do anything to get a seat, so in short every parent ever. It is a mockery of the Indian government that chooses to keep its eyes closed and overlook impoverished inhabitable conditions of their schools.
It tends to be a tad biased on numerous occasions to help the story reach the right areas. Even though it scores great on comedy, it doesn’t score well in drama.
Whatever the case might be, I think Saket becomes successful in making his point. I hope it helps turn the tide.
You can check out other Irrfan Khan movie reviews on this site as well.
Check out the trailer of Hindi Medium movie:
Hindi Medium
Pros
- Great comedy
- Tries to address issues related to children education
- Fantastic gimmicks on the plight of people
- Outstanding plot
Cons
- Feels very unrealistic at times
- Dies down by the end
- Drama is terrible
- Contrived feel
