October is a beautiful story of love and humane emotions expressed in the most subtle way possible.
Certain partnerships just churn out Gold. Shoojit Sircar once again delivers ace cinema along with writer Juhi Chaturvedi. (Vicky Donor, Madras Cafe, Piku).
The biggest strength of this movie is the story, screenplay and dialogues. Juhi has sketched out such realistic characters that they seem to belong to real life around you. How she has been able to convey so much and so beautifully with minimal dialogues needs to be seen to be believed. And Shoojit has turned all that marvellous writing into a movie that stands a class apart.
Dan( Varun)is a young boy of twenty who is working at a five-star hotel as a part of his hotel management diploma. He is typically naughty, mischievous, irresponsible, lazy & surprisingly loveable in a cutesy way. His life takes a turn after a freak incident involving one of his colleagues / co-student Shiuli ( Banita Sandhu).
I wouldn’t call it his transformation as we could see the good human beneath his naughty surface even before that incident but as we discover the layers to his personality, it makes us keep falling in love with him.
His innocence, his selflessness, his empathy beyond practical approach, his inquisitiveness, his positive approach towards life could actually give us many leaves to ponder over.
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If Juhi deserves accolades for creating that character, I must say that Varun deserves it equally for playing it so well. We have seen the mature actor in him in Badlapur.October is the second medallion in his short span in cinema. Kudos to him for playing the part in such restrained and class performance.
The maturity, the pain, the dilemma, the struggle expressed by Shiuli ‘s mother ( Gitanjali Rao) is nothing less than superb.
Banita Sandhu, who had a long role but with nothing to use except her eyes, not even her expressions, is absolutely appreciable.
Jogi, the casting guy has done a superb job. Each and every actor in this whole story deserves appreciation irrespective of the length of the role. Whether its the main characters or the ones on the fringes.
The hotel manager Asthana ( Prateek Kapoor) seemed so real with his attitude and body language that I thought they have probably picked him up from the hotel industry. Dan’s and Shiuli ‘s friends seem as if they have just been lifted from your own student life. Their easy camaraderie, their unsaid understanding and petty tiffs and conversations are superb pieces of writing and performed equally well by the actors.
In spite of all sensitive atmospherics, there ‘s light humour finespun in Dan’s innocence.
The background score by Shantanu Moitra is in perfect sync.No songs have been used to add effects. Camera work by Avik Mukhopadhyay is great.
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The plot might revolve around the reality of life, its unpredictability, its harshness but that’s not what the filmmaker focuses on. He instead, turns our attention towards love, empathy, humaneness, simple unsaid emotions and understanding and most important of all, it teaches us to have faith, to keep the faith and to remain positive irrespective of what are the possibilities.
There’s a dialogue Dan says to his friends when they were asking him to have a practical approach .”Kya tum wahi karte ho jiska chance hota hai ?”.
That says a lot.
Likewise, there are so many beautiful dialogues that are for your own deep interpretations. There are so many beautiful scenes with apparently nothing much being said but yet so overwhelming.
In fact, it’s the quiet, unsaid things that are the most beautiful aspects to be relished in this story. You would find yourself overwhelmed, smiling, admiring, in thoughts.
This wonderful movie of lesser words but more of emotions and thoughts would leave you in admiration.
Score 9 on 10