‘Homebound’ Review: A Moribund Journey Home

Bounded by home, wounded by the sluggish state of Police Recruitment Exam—the speed of the process akin to that of blood in a dying artery—this film is not exactly a swashbuckling as much as a moribund journey towards home, with Coronavirus pandemic spreading its fangs, only for poison to be spewed by Indian Media (naturally) and pseudo superior complex inherent within humans. Not the only contemporary film set in contemporary setting playing at cinema right now, the characters (and the director) here nonetheless face one battle after another, the hindsight, as Ari Aster says, is 2020.

For the characters it’s a battle against their circumstances: Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa) navigating their life in order to escape the confinements by clearing the recruitment exam, the Police job their ticket to happiness and respect; only for them (and us) to realise the millions of Chandan(s) and Shoaib(s) trying hundreds of different approach to attain the same goal, the first encounter with ground reality on Railway Station shaking Chandan’s resolve to core. There are more ways to woods than one, but for the characters here, there’s only one way out.

We see the characters moving up the spiral path only to realise that the circle Shoaib and Chandan re-enact along the way does not open up, a perpetual state of waits and delays keeping them trapped in an endless loop. The exam process in itself is like a sea-sickness, only the hope of dying by taking one test after another is keeping them alive. Even if you qualify an exam, the elongated period of waiting for the recruitment letter completely sabotages hope, dreams and patience. There’s really no cure for exam induced paranoia when it’s the sole means of providing an upward mobility in society.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to waste their life waiting for the outcomes of these exams. Shoaib, rejecting Dubai, failing to clear the exam and exceeding the age-limit to appear in one, decides to join a sales company as a peon, wherein at once he finds a mentor and tormentor: the casual workplace discrimation not failing to assail Shoaib’s courage. His courage however is never diminished. On the other hand Chandan is left in an even more paranoid state as his patience for waiting for the appointment letter wears off. His locus in the void of impatient state, Sudha encourages him to continue his Undergraduate Studies, but it’s a train soon to be wrecked.

Through the best and worst of times, it’s a film about perseverance of a true friendship not impervious to friction, but not fragile like plaster of paris. The momentary separation only brings the two friends close till death do them apart. The approach here is that of neo-realism, the nuance and bluntness operate in a zig-zag pattern, one only wishes more nuance in the part where it devolves into blunt.

The families of the two characters have their own battle: Chandan’s sister lacking the luxury of making her own decisions; his mother, blessed by food gods, belittled by community for her caste. The multitudes contained in these family dynamics and their interaction with other members of society, brings out the most repugnant truth, people operating in their most primal. The performances all across the board range from a-okay to excellent.

For Neeraj Ghaywan it’s a battle against censorship: try as one might to tell a story with even a soupçon of versimilitude, one cannot overcome the downward force exerted by CBFC. If the vision of a filmmaker is a rocket then CBFC is the gravity hindering its flight. Ghaywan constructs the film upon a New York Times article A Friendship, a Pandemic and a Death Beside the Highway by Basharat Peer, which barring the spoilers, narrates the story of two daily wage workers embarking on a 1700km journey home, from Surat to UP. Then how ironic cum moronic it is of censor board to forewarn that the fiction you’re about to see is based on a true story, equivalent of saying that reality in this country has no semblance to real world, and verily this is how major chunk of population ensares themselves in a fiction which apparently dictates their reality and implies that the kind of reality CBFC is in touch with is not real but anti-real.

Pratik Shah’s lensing imparts brevity to images; the film devoid of songs finds its own rhythm, and faces a discontinuity or two—either due to script or CBFC—which for some reason left me with a sense of incompleteness, like phantom limbs when you know something that needs to be there is missing. However, unlike last year’s embarassing submission by CBFC for international oscars—followed by one embarassing statement after another to justify the choice—they showcased some sensibility in sumbitting Homebound, which I honestly think will make it to the International Shortlist at least. For Ghaywan, good luck and as for CBFC, quit fooling.

Homebound stars Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor. The film is directed by Neeraj Ghaywan and executive produced by Martin Scorsese, among others.

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