Movie Review - Super 30 [PDF]

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MOVIE REVIEW – SUPER 30 Super 30 is magnificent survivor of a film. It survives Hrithik Roshan's atrocious "Bihari" accent, probably picked from one of the many Lalu Yadav skits on the internet. It not only survives the verbal abomination, but it also stakes its claim among the most inspiring and kindred films on the empowerment of the underprivileged through education. Mathematician par excellence Anand Kumar couldn't have hoped for a better showcasing of his remarkable work in the field of education. Of course, the original endeavour to give the disempowered students a chance to make a place in the sun has been substantially amplified and dramatized. The climax specially shot on a hospital premise with the protagonist's students taking on a gang of professional goons, is a hoot. But then, this film survives the onslaught of the outrageous, from the hero's accent to the film's climax, to create a very special and precious place in our heart. What comes across is the warmth and empathy of the selfless fearless educationist who would walk that extra mile-literally to educate, empower and edify the life of poor students. And what a marvellous bunch of eager anxious under dogs director Vikas Bahl has assembled in Anand Kumar's class act! The students feel real and gloss over many of the narrative's broad melodramatic leaps of faith. Some of their activities in the classroom are stretched out and a tad tedious. Otherwise, Anand Kumar's story moves at an even pace, bringing out his humanism and generosity of spirit without ever resorting to over-sentimentalization. What we get are some fabulously choreographed songs especially the Basanti number where a wonderful parable of empowerment is created at a very public place during Holi where the rich kids are shown to be "put in their place" by Anand's downtrodden army. It is a marvellously staged illusory drama which reminds us of the biggest flaw in this film: the children from privileged homes are not to be blamed for their entitlement. But then this exceptional film survives even this moral incongruity. The flaws get mitigated by the film's supreme belief in the power of education to heal, and by Hrithik's central performance. He doesn't play Anand Kumar. He enters the mathematician's soul. Another magnificent performance comes from Pankaj Tripathy as a slimy politician. Tripathy, a born scene-stealer gives his unctuous slimy character a glint of humour and a hint of hilarity. There is a tender love story tucked away in the passionate parable of empowerment. And Hrithik courts Mrunal Thakur with a jaunty standoffishness that feels real. Mrunal gets some pithy lines that make fun of the self-effacing genius of a boyfriend. I especially loved a line that comes late in the plot when she praises herself for her taste in men. But clearly, there is more heart in Hrithik/Anand's relationship with his father (Veerendra Saxena) and his brother



(Nandish Singh) than with his girlfriend. The father whom Anand calls by his first name, oils his son's hair and gives him advice on sexual release. The mother (played warmly by Sadhana Singh) is for a change, a shadowy figure.



Lallan transforms into a scowling villain, in cahoots with the corrupt education minister of the state (Pankaj Tripathi), upset by Anand’s decision to give away his skills rather than letting Lallan continue to make big money off them. The screenplay focuses on their confrontation, rather than the real story – which is Anand’s attempts to get these 30 students past the line. At this point, the characters multiply. Amit Sadh plays a reporter who helps Anand. Mrunal Thakur portrays Anand’s former lover who pines for him. Add to this some outlandish plot points, including high-level government officers officiating “contests” between Lallan’s students and Anand’s. This hodgepodge of subplots and confrontations subtract from the strength of the first part of the movie.



Super 30, then, is less about the 30, more about the one. That one has a heavy Bihari accent, which I won’t speak to the authenticity of, except to say it sounds like an actor trying with every fiber of his being to sound Bihari. The second hurdle, if you’re trying to appreciate Roshan’s performance, is his darker-than-usual complexion – Bollywood shorthand for “person from lowincome household"; unforgivable yet shamefully common. There are half a dozen actors who’d have fit the part better, but Roshan, at least in the early stages, isn’t as distractingly emotive as he can sometimes be, and there’s a reserve to his Anand that pulls back some of the sentimentality. This is Bahl’s fourth film as director, and his first release after allegations of sexual assault were made against him by a former employee (he was cleared by an Internal Complaints Committee). If Super 30 had told its story straight, it might have had something revealing to say about coaching class culture, Kumar’s eccentric methods, and the psychology of these students 'Super 30' is a drama that has its set of flaws but is worth a watch. Super 30 has superlative writing, narration and direction. It is a very pertinent and inspiring film on education, coaching mafia and talent poor kids possess in India. The first half is phenomenal and engaging. The first 40 minutes in the second half get slow. But picked up towards climax and the movie ends on a high note, say the audience. The movie weaves the caste prejudice and education for the privileged angle beautifully into the narrative. This is the story of a common man who decides to wage war on many fronts. There are some moments that will tug at your heartstrings and leave you in tears.



There’s an important scene between Roshan and Tripathi where Roshan has to show vulnerability. He tries his level best to portray it on the screen, but somehow the excellent comic timing and screen presence of Tripathi overshadow Roshan completely. Quite a few times, a particular dialogue would pop up in the film which says “Raja ka beta raja nahi banega”. However, the film has an unpredictable graph of its run. Some scenes are so monotonous and lengthy that you would want to leave the theatre. On the other hand, there are scenes which will move you occasionally but I wish it was not over exaggerated beyond a limit. Scenes which should have evoked sympathy for the underprivileged students in a lop-sided education system were evoking laughter from many in the audience when I watched the movie, because of the way it was executed. Having said that, this movie has reminded me of my books which are sitting inside a closet, covered in dust. So if you want, you can definitely give it a try and decide for yourself. I say ‘curious’ because of the chosen treatment. Super 30 doesn’t just reflect the distracted focus of a child, it is also made in the narrative language of a “children’s film”. The signs are everywhere. Early on, we see an education minister (an animated Pankaj Tripathi) presenting Anand (Roshan) with the Ramanujan medal – the sheepish man speaks in the kind of broken English that suggests he is a villainish caricature, a “comic” character meant to appease younger viewers. Anand runs back to his neighbourhood in slow-motion; he shyly sneaks a peek of an ethereal girl (Mrunal Thakur from the brutal Love Sonia is wasted) in dance practice, while the score suddenly soars to suggest a poor boy-rich girl romance. Her upper-class father looks at him the way Indian filmmakers look at film critics these days. On learning about his Cambridge acceptance letter, the man remarks that “people from your section don’t progress like this”. There’s more evidence. Like a protagonist straight out of a musical, Anand’s eyes light up – you can almost see the light bulb over his head – when he hears thoughtful phrases (his postman dad joyously declares that “A King’s son isn’t a King anymore”) and simple ideas (a peon sincerely tells Anand to get his work published if he wants to read the library’s foreign journals). Numbers and trigonometric terms sparkle and swim across the blackboard in e-lesson style when he solves a tough equation. When Anand suffers a tragedy, it’s in pouring rain and thunder, the most retro weather conditions imaginable. When Anand faces off with rival educationalist Lallan Singh (Aditya Shrivastava) before the interval, the dialogues flow between them (“I created you, I can destroy you”) like a ‘70s potboiler, and the sky turns overcast and stormy (“toofan aane wala hai”). During Anand’s rousing “yeh ameer log” monologue to his glum students, the music resembles the crescendo in Super Mario after the 8-bit hero leaps onto the flagpole at the end of a stage. He inspires them with lines like, “Don’t use a pen; just smile…and wonder”. One of Ajay-Atul’s tracks is even about a question mark. In a Ta-Ra-Rum-Pum-ish riff, Anand’s starving students pass a posh canteen in which the camera explicitly fixates on burgers and fries. In the film’s most cacophonic sequence, the kids



stage an English version of Sholay to exorcise their inferiority complex, which somehow morphs into an interminable Holi song called “Basanti no dance”. Not to mention a scene in which they use their unorthodox Physics knowledge to defeat dangerous gun-toting dacoits as if they were Chacha Chaudhary or Kevin McCallister in an abandoned bungalow. All of which is to say that – Hrithik Roshan’s bhojpuri accent and tanned complexion aside (out of context, you might imagine that Arjun is back from his Spanish sojourn in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara) – there’s a clear problem with the tonality of Super 30. A children’s film can be innovative. But some directors tend to embrace this patronizing tone – usually passed off as ‘a homage to 70s Bollywood’ – to compensate for a lack of research and investment into their characters. For the most part, Super 30 seems like that kind of misfire. The melodrama and operatic noise are a front to hide how little it cares about a fascinating subject. It isn’t even convinced of its own form, thereby assuming the look of different genres every other scene. There’s no tangible reason to tell an adult story through a kiddie lens; you suspect that the mere presence of children’s institutions in a film often confuses the makers. Roshan’s performance, too, is symptomatic of this condition. He oscillates between magician (Guzaarish) and magic (Koi…Mil Gaya) – traits that make the teacher more of a PG-13 cartoon hero than an iconic personality. He tries hard to do a silent Will-Smith-in-Pursuit-ofHappyness celebration after achieving two separate miracles, but there’s a sense that his brief simply reads as “brown Mary Poppins without the umbrella”. Which is a pity, because if there was any one actor who could really dance to entertain, it’s Anand Kumar. While the dramatisation of the plot, written by Sanjeev Dutta, looks like the easy part of this task, the film really stumbles over the controversy of Roshan playing a dark-skinned academic in the rugged locales of Bihar. And this is where the film fails to establish a connection. In the pre-release interviews, Roshan sounded offended and even termed related talk after watching the trailer as “racism”. He has been selective with his interviews after getting questions mailed to his public relations team given the added reason that the actor has been fighting legal battles about the film as well as in personal life. Detractors of Anand Kumar have filed claims that he takes money and does not coach entirely for free. In his career, the handsome Roshan, has impressed in roles where action and dance have been prominent. With Super 30, he has made a big jump to prove he is an all-rounder actor after decent performances with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Kaabil. Like any biopic, the cinematic liberty masks some aspects of Anand Kumar, but there is no doubting a noble cause where education for all in India is still a work in progress despite the achievements of many Indians on the global stage. Roshan’s film is a good reminder that much homework needs to be done.



Not letting facts get in the way of enlivening a story, Hrithik Roshan delivers the goods with a grounded, sympathetic performance but his use of bronze-face to portray his darker-skinned counterpart is distracting. Under some lights, Roshan looks like one of those badly tanned reality TV stars. Under other lights, the bronzing looks invisible, particularly against the sunny sepia-imbued backdrop of Bihar. But, under all lights, it’s an unacceptable choice for an actor in this day and age. I understand the commercial viewpoint of needing a superstar to get a film financed and widely distributed but the colorist subtext is problematic. Bihar is vividly captured as director Bahl handsomely mounts his movie, using the camera to inform his lead actor’s performance foremostly, holding shots at length when he’s capturing Roshan in his element as the vivacious teacher, appreciably cutting only after the moment is truly over. Highlights include a motivational speech scene (it’s hard to go wrong with those, really) and when Anand discovers his students’ fate after the final exam – a million words are spoken in the medium close-up of Roshan’s slow, silent, subdued control of tears and ecstasy. Mrunal Thakur, as love interest Ritu Rashmi, is a revelation. She doesn’t get much screen time – relative to the length – but makes a splashy impression in her scenes. There’s a point where Ritu smiles through the pain whilst crying her eyes out during a break-up with Anand and it’s perhaps the most powerful bit of acting in the movie. I wish I had such strong emotions watching Super 30, a competently filmed entertainment but a frustrating embroidery of a story already inherent with cinematic value. Despite its efforts to root itself in a distinctive milieu, Super 30 cannot escape the motivational movie template set out by such Hollywood productions as Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting and Queen of Katwe. Still, the movie says nothing about an academic system based on rote learning. The role of caste in holding back students is completely passed over. The scenes that carry the movie over its contradictions are the ones that explore all-too-familiar truths. The crisp dialogue and largely unsentimental exploration of Anand’s struggles mark the rousing countdown to inevitable success in important ways. Like this year’s Gully Boy, Super 30 suggests that with talent and commitment, it is possible to cross over from the other side of the tracks. Leap high towards your goals, Anand tells his students. The formula is as pat as the solution, but many parts of the journey makes this classroom victory worth the while.