No hiccups in this Hichki. Review on Hichki

A Rani Mukherjee outing has to be seen especially since she has begun spacing them so far apart. I knew nothing about the movie/ the story/ reviews till I went to see it this evening. I was only banking on Rani. And boy! Was I pleasantly surprised!

This is a story that has probably been told before – and teacher’s stories ARE about how you win the children.

This one takes two lovely autobiographical stories – Brad Cohen’s Front of the Class and E.R> Braithwaite’s - To Sir With Love, Indianises them and a wonderful story Hitchki is born

Rani plays Ms. Naina Mathur, a young girl who has Tourette’s syndrome that causes tics accompanied by sounds. Yet she is convinced that she can be good teacher. After several tries, St Norket’s gives her a chance- to teach. She has been allotted a section that the school and the rest of the students only want to write off since it has 14 children from slums in that special section. The kids too seem to have given upon themselves.

But not their new teacher.

What happens next? See the movie to find out, I’m not telling the story here

Rani reminds me of Black. She has my nominations for this one. Especially in one particular scene where in a lonely corner of the school she is battling a severe stress induced attack caused by a really bad day. In those five minutes she makes you want to hug her and tell her it’s ok.

While other directors would have gone OTT to make this a tear jerker, this one manages the nuances of the actors to just cause a memorable lump in your throat. The kids manage a wonderful bout of acting themselves and it is here too that the director deserves his laurels. Again no OTT but you can sense their feelings via their expressions.

The music scores were with the flow, never loud, just keeping you going

Taut screen play and editing, not a single wasted shot in the movie.(Though I did see a song in the television that I did not see in the movie itself). Other nice touch was calling the school where the movie plays out – St. Norket’s.

Special credits to the casting director Shanoo Sharma especially liked the grown up versions of the kids

Neeraj Kabi, who plays the antagonist Mr. Wadia in a very well written role, does a marvelous job. Managing to make you dislike him, but not hate him. Shades of grey, subtly stated

How Love and a firm belief what you are doing can turn things around is the biggest lesson for me from this epic tale.

If a recently released movie can  inspires you to go forth with just determination and self confidence then this is it.

If you believe that a good teacher can make/ made all the difference in the life of a child, then thismovie is for you

If you like a story that makes you want to reach out to its characters then this movie is for you

A lovely tale, well told