Movie Review: Shoojit Sircar’s ‘October’

Movie Review: October
Rating: 4/5
Director: Shoojit Sircar
Cast: Varun Dhawan, Banita Sandhu

October Movie Trailer

Shoojit Sircar’s ‘October’ says a lot, without saying too much. Yes, it is a film about love, seen from Dan’s pure and simple world-view and Shuili’s silent, stoic stares. It’s not a story crafted with heavy doses of dialogues, romantic ballads or bombastic tropes common to the genre. The beauty lies in the simplicity of it all. Dan is a 21-year-old who still has a lot of growing up to do; he’s clumsy and careless at work, a tad cocky too, but not with an air of arrogance. He doesn’t speak volumes, but he’s blunt and straightforward. Dan expresses himself with a rare innocence that makes him lovable. As colleagues, Shiuli and he share nothing more than a few glances and some casual conversation. After the untoward episode, as she lies in bed, Dan is drawn to her agonizing and motionless world.

The text of the film conveys a great deal through what it puts into words; but what it leaves unsaid conceals, and thereby heightens, its essence. Even as it envelopes you in the snuggly, misty warmth of a pre-winter day, it never lets go of an acute awareness of the agonizing unpredictability of the ebbs and tides of life. “The soul is always conscious,” says a neurologist whose patient lies in coma. “Have patience.”

The film’s male protagonist is 21-year-old Danish Walia, a hospitality industry rookie who is convinced that he deserves better than the constant badgering of hotel guests and scornful seniors. The conflicted character is brought alive in a completely believable way by Varun Dhawan, who sheds his Bollywood hero trappings and slips into the skin of a boy who still has much growing up to do. This is the performance of Dhawan’s life because there is no obvious ‘performance’ in this author-backed act.

Varun Dhawan drops the Bollywood hero’s garb in the most understated and finest performance of his career. Shoojit brilliantly moulds Varun into Dan, making you forget that you ever saw him grooving shirtless on screen before. Debutante Banita uses her beautiful eyes to express emotions, or lack of it. It’s an arduous task, as that’s the only ammo she has at hand. Gitanjali as Shiuli’s mother is a class act. Follow Spotlife Asia for the latest Entertainment and Lifestyle news.

‘October’ is not bound by Indian sensibility alone; it is a humane story that will possibly enjoy a much wider appeal across international audiences. For a Bollywood fan seeking escapist cinema, the laid-back pace might be a deterrent. But it is evident that the director wanted this story about love to find its own life cycle of blossom.

The physical spaces that the film predominantly uses in Delhi seem everyday enough – a luxury hotel in the outskirts of the city, a multispecialty hospital, an ICU ward within it, a middle class home, a shared bachelor pad and, of course, many instantly recognizable exterior locations. Viewed through the camera of director of photography Avik Mukhopadhyay, the settings acquire an added dimension and depth. He composes a visual palette marked by a certain stillness, which ensures that the lighting and the camera angles do not call undue attention to themselves.

The film uses the metaphor of the shiuli flower (coral jasmine), whose white petals are at their brightest and most resplendent at night in the hours leading to the bloom’s final parting with the plant it grows on to emphasize the inevitable transience of beauty. October is a film about love discovered too late and about the desperate need to make up for lost time: the sustained elegiac undertones give it its distinctive quality.

Sircar manages to inject moments of light humour into the film, as in the scene in which the hero asks the hospital receptionist exactly how good their neurologist is. He is a genius, the employee replies. His scepticism firmly in place, the hero says: “He must be a genius, if you insist. It is good to know.