Chhichhore is a tribute to Indian college life- to lifelong friendships, to sweet- albeit immature- first romances, to college rivalries and the golden memories. Go into this movie fully expecting a nostalgic ride that’s going to compel you to take out and dust off that album full of your college-time photos that you stuffed somewhere in the back of your closet years ago.
The story follows Anirudh (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Maya (Shraddha Kapoor) – a middle-aged divorced couple, and their son Raghav (Mohammad Samad). Raghav, an aspiring engineer, finds out he hasn’t qualified for IIT in JEE- Advanced, and panicking about being called a loser, attempts to commit suicide by jumping off the balcony. Anirudh, Maya and their college friends find themselves having an impromptu reunion in the hospital as Anirudh tells Raghav stories from his college life and all of them take a trip down the memory lane.
Now, there’s a bunch of Bollywood movies out there based on college life, and Chhichhore is quite possibly the best among all of them, purely because Nitesh Tiwari comes the closest to portraying what it’s really like being a college student on an Indian campus. The story is simple but brilliantly written, the dialogue sparkling with wit. One of the strongest aspects of Chhichhore is its humour that deftly walks the fine line between seeming crass and being bland.
The many zingers— most of which go to Varun Sharma who plays Sexa— will leave you laughing out loud long after the movie is over. Pritam’s music and the background score beautifully blends with the narrative instead of seeming disruptive. And the way Tiwari manages to seamlessly weave the two timelines together- not for once making the flashbacks seem abrupt- is nothing short of magical.
The casting is spot on, you just can’t see anyone else doing the characters justice like the actors who took them on. Though Varun Sharma and Naveen Polishetty- as Sexa and Acid respectively- shine the most among Anirudh’s gang of friends, that by no means implies that Tahir Raj Bhasin (Derek), Tushar Pandey (Mummy) and Saharsh Shukla (Bevda) were anything less than amazing.
Rajput, however, is the soul and blood of the movie- playing both the roles of a carefree college kid and that of a distressed father so convincingly. In Chhichhore, he probably delivers what is the best performance of his entire career (which is really saying something, since his career consists entirely of stellar acts).
Chhichhore is not without its flaws, however. Shraddha Kapoor’s character was perhaps paid the least amount of attention in the movie, and you can’t help but wonder why she’s even there, even though Kapoor charms whenever she’s in the frame. It seems like her character was added as an afterthought, since Bollywood movies require a girl to sit around and look pretty. The chemistry between Rajput and Kapoor is scarce, probably because they got very little screen time together to begin with. The camaraderie among the boys takes the center stage instead.
Chhichhore is an incredibly relevant movie with a strong and well-conveyed message. Very rarely comes a movie that you can rewatch a million times and never get tired of. Chhichhore has the potential to be one of those for you.