Mirror, mirror, on the wall…
Shoojit Sircar’s October will stay with you, move you to tears, revive anxieties you’d forgotten you had.
Dan (Varun Dhawan) is a likeable but sassy hotel management student interning at a Delhi hotel. He wants to be a chef, but is struggling to keep up, so he lashes out. Sometimes he won’t serve an order immediately, or won’t change the napkins on a table. He resents being at the bottom of the ladder and sees these as his chances to get even.
Shiuli (Banita Sandhu) is another trainee at the hotel. They share the same troubles, but they barely talk. One day, she falls from the third floor of the building and goes into a coma. Inexplicably, Dan finds that he can’t move on. This meaninglessness of this abrupt end to all her dreams becomes, for him, a personal battle. He questions everything he has felt and wanted, struggles to find what defines him, and forces you to sit up and wonder the same. To ask, as we go about our robotic days, what makes us more than the sum of our parts.
The calm of an early morning, the breeze on your skin… everything starts to feel like a revelation, and underlying it is a desperate suspicion that none of it has any meaning at all. In a world where self-indulgence has replaced love, you recognise his yearning for an hour of soulful living.
Juhi Chaturvedi’s screenplay builds Dan’s character beautifully, from a restless quick-talking youngster to someone whose silence simmers. Avik Mukhopadhayay’s camera finds for Dan a solitude in crowded markets and deserted Delhi parks. Shantanu Moitra’s music creates the equilibrium you need as you inhabit the character’s inner and outer worlds.
Dhawan is restrained and mature. His humour feels innate, but so do his understanding of pain and human frailty. This is a compelling film that will leave you numb and force you to face yourself, and isn’t that what all good cinema is about?