Reviewing HINDI MEDIUM in English is quite an irony in itself. Nonetheless, I write in case it saves you the time and the money.
I had decent expectations from HINDI MEDIUM. The subject at hand felt not only interesting, but relevant too. It had so much potential to work with.
But as we have seen on most occasions, great potential not always transform into great result. HINDI MEDIUM is then, again a lost opportunity.
HINDI MEDIUM begins promisingly. It gives you a feeling that you just might get what you came in expecting -a satire on topical issues, humour stemming out from the protagonist's muddle, an insight on social vices and eventually leading to probably a penetrating perspective. But nothing of the sorts happen. Your expectations take a beating, your grey matter remains unaltered and your emotions run pretty much dry.
Barring a few genuinely funny and moving scenes, nothing much stirs or shakes you. The chemicals in your blood never gets their escalation, the neurons fail their stimulation.
The film though, means well. It is well-intended and brilliantly enacted. It even wants to. It wants to address issues and even wants to send home a message, it just doesn't know how to.
Hence, no matter how relevant the predicaments are, their presentation comes across as forced and contrived. On most occasions, scenes are merely constructed to make them funny. Would have been so much better had humour trickled down naturally from the scenes. It all feels laboured, uneasy and incomplete.
"English is not a language, it is a class", vocals Irrfan's wife.Quite a statement, but the film never establishes the theme. It scratches social taboos aplenty, hints on the prevalent malices,but doesn't penetrate deep enough. All shallow and dealt superficially and lacking the much needed weight or depth.
What the film does manage,(and that usually works for Bollywood)is that it plays to the populist gallery. What it does have are two splendid actors in Irrfan Khan and Deepak dobriyal. It is these two actors who save the day and make the film watchable.
Watch only if you have nothing else to do.
