October (Movie Review)

October Takes You Through Seasons of Life!

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As there are different seasons of nature, so are there different seasons of life and love. The film October attempts to take you through these seasons leaving you disturbed and moist-eyed on many occasions. Shoojit Sircar’s film ‘October’ tries to tell an unconventional love story. He dares to take the risk of telling a story which plays with your innate feelings towards unexpected tragedies in life without much melodrama and heroism.

The first half of the film is lighthearted and feverishly slow and the second half all of a sudden keeps you watch the vitals’ status updates on the hospital room’s monitor. The characters played by Banita Sandhu and Varun Dhawan as Shiuli Iyer and Danish Walia aka Dan respectively don’t hold you or move you. You watch them as a third person and feel bad and when you are out of the cinema hall, you leave their story behind like any other sad incident. The pre-interval part of the film keeps you puzzled in figuring out what the filmmaker wants to convey and the post-interval part keeps you feel bad for what has happened.

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It is not the story but the situation and the uncertainties of life that make you relate to what Shoojit is trying to tell you. The rest of the characters are just caricatures to make the unpleasant happening in the protagonist’s life look realistic. Dan, a hotel management trainee is employed with a five-star hotel in Delhi and he is undergoing the in-house job training with a bunch of other young boys and girls. It’s quite evident from the very first shot that Dan is different from the rest of his batch members. He is talkative, opinionated, and impulsive, uses his brain more than anyone else and therefore, finds himself in trouble often with his seniors and manager.  On the contrary, Shiuli Iyer is more adaptive, ready to learn and calm.

A freak accident on the eve of New Year turns the life of Shiuli and the people in her life upside down. And what Shiuli said before she slipped into a comatose draws him closer to her. What follows is the unfolding of a subtle and a melancholic feeling of love between them that keeps you feeling good as well as uncertain of its outcome. Geetanjali Rao as the grief-stricken mother plays her part convincingly and makes her presence felt but the siblings of Shiuli are less convincing. Shiuli’s sister keeps calling her ‘Akka’ and her brother barely emotes and utter anything.

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Juhi Chaturvedi and Shoojit Sircar’s collaboration this time emits a soothing fragrance of love through ‘Shiuli’ the night Jasmine which is used symbolically to convey the blossoming and withering away of life. October reminds us gently that ‘Impermanence’ is the basic nature of life. What you have will leave you one day but remember what leaves you physically doesn’t actually leave you because it stays within you; you just need to close your eyes and see it, feel it and smell the ‘Shiuli’ within you.

Go and watch ‘October’ because we need to appreciate such attempts that infuses a kind of freshness in storytelling and its depiction.

Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 3/5

Cast: Varun Dhawan (Danish Walia), Banita Sandhu (Shiuli Iyer), Getanjali Rao (Prof. Vidhya Iyer)

Genre: Drama/Romance

Director: Shoojit Sircar

Producers: Ronnie Lahiri, Sheel Kumar

Written by: Juhi Chaturvedi

Dialogues/Screenplay/Story: Juhi Chaturvedi

Music by: Shantanu Moitra

Cinematography: Avik Mukhopadhayay

Edited by: Chandrasheker Prajapati

Production Company: Rising Sun Films

Distributors: Rising Sun Films, Kino Works

Release Date: 13 April 2018

Duration: 115 Minutes

Language: Hindi