Hichki Movie Review: Rani Mukerji Gets Full Marks But This Film Is Not A Class Act

Cast:Rani Mukerji, Supriya Pilgaonkar, Sachin Pilgaonkar, Harsh Mayar, Shivkumar Subramaniam, Neeraj Kabi
Director: Siddharth P Malhotra
Rating: 2.5 Stars (out of 5)

A novel plot idea is buried under an avalanche of narrative cliches in Hichki. In her comeback film, Rani Mukerji gives the role of a Tourette Syndrome-afflicted teacher all she has. Full marks there! However, Hichki, directed by Siddharth P Malhotra, isn't the kind of class act that does justice to the film's larger purpose of underscoring the need for inclusion.

It is marred by more hiccups than its wafer-thin storyline can handle. The screenplay suffers from a syndrome that Bollywood fans are familiar with - it is a condition characterized by an obsession with amplified sentimentality and the tendency to offer superficial commentary.

In the opening moments, the protagonist is interviewed by the trustees of a school. At the outset, none of them has any clue what Tourette's is. They are wiser by the time the spirited heroine is done with them. But one of them still suggests to her that she should cannot be a teacher. Look for another calling, he suggests. Her parting riposte is defiant: if I have taught you about Tourette's in no time, I am sure I can handle students in a classroom, too.

Hichki isn't only about an individual's struggle to wrest and secure her rightful place in the world. Its spotlight is also on a lopsided and complacent education system that allows no leeway to those born on the wrong side of the tracks - in this case, on the wrong side of a highway and a gutter that runs alongside it. The bitter battle for acceptance waged by the pivotal character and her underprivileged students plays out on two different planes, the lines crossing each other at times, but the drama never assumes truly rousing proportions

The neurological condition that hampers the protagonist's career prospects certainly makes Hichki a unique film in the context of Indian cinema. The novelty factor does not, however, transcend the unusual nature of the personal battles that Naina Mathur must fight. In the early portions of the film, the audience is told that she has been rejected by 18 schools simply on account of her speech and nervous system defect. But she refuses to give up on her dream.

When the strong-willed lady does eventually land a job in a missionary school named after a stuttering Catholic saint who, many centuries ago, rose above his speech impairment thanks to the power of his intellect, her disorder is reduced to a mere plot detail and the focus of the film shifts to the fraught teacher-student dynamics defined by the class divide that separates 14 slum-dwelling students and the rest of this school for affluent children.