October Movie Review: Varun Dhawan, Shoojit Sircar Present A Poignant Tale Of Unconditional Love!

Director Shoojit Sircar's highly awaited film October releases in theatres on Friday, April 13. Toplining Bollywood's current blockbuster heartthrob Varun Dhawan and newcomer Banita Sandhu, October is a beautiful and poignant tale of love. It is slow but not depressing, it is sentimental but realistic, it is love or rather the discovery of love. 

Varun Dhawan plays Danish Walia aka Dan and Banita Sandhu plays Shiuli Iyer. Both are studying hotel management and interning at a five-star hotel in Delhi. Their life, along with that of the other students, is work-based and mundane. While Shiuli and the others are focussed on their jobs, Dan finds excuses to skip work and is up to some mischief or the other. Dan continues to be carefree, until Shiuli's accident changes his life forever. The movie is about how Dan develops an unspoken bond with Shiuli, who is not even his girlfriend, and her family, especially her mother who is IIT Professor Vidya Nair (Gitanjali Rao).

The love story is superbly subtle. There is not a single scene or even a camera angle where Dan and Shiuli exchange glances or have so much as a real conversation. They do not long for each other or speak about each other either. So it is apparent later that the connection the two felt was without saying anything to each other. It simply occurred in the course of their working together on a daily basis. Both are interns going about their duties rather than thinking of having a love life or anything else. These are normal students training to be working professionals. 

So when did LOVE happen between Dan and Shiuli? When did the special connection happen? Dan and Shiuli don't know. The viewers don't know. It just happens. Like love usually does. That is the beauty of the love, isn't it?

Even without knowing he loves her, Dan knows more about Shiuli than the others. Like when he says to her best friend that Shiuli doesn't know what she is doing. Or when he does simple mischief like dropping her favourite parijaat flowers on the floor, knowing she will be mad at him.

But does Shiuli really love Dan? Does Dan really love Shiuli? This part in October reminds me of the simple love story of the characters of Aamir Khan and Asin in Ghajini. Asin as Kalpana is killed by Ghajini the villain (played by Pradeep Rawat), and she never comes to know that her lover is the real Sanjay Singhania the business magnate and not the middle-class man he is pretending to be to woo her. It was so touching. And so is the love story in October. Some things are never said, just felt.

October is clearly Varun Dhawan's most natural performance yet. It is in the league of his Badlapur (2015). And yet, to this young actor's credit, Varun does not take the limelight away from Banita Sandhu, although he easily could have, as the actress as Shiuli hardly has anything to do as a patient in coma. All credit to Varun and Shoojit for this!

Banita Sandhu has made a splashing Bollywood debut as Shiuli. She says a lot with those beautiful eyes. But for her to do more Bollywood films, she may have to or maybe is already working on her diction, as she was born and brought up in the UK. One could say it was an advantage for Banita that she does not come with the baggage in her Hindi cinema debut that an Indian youngster would have had, considering what one hears about Bollywood and how one may be groomed to be an actor if you're a native of Mumbai.

Gitanjali Rao as Shiuli's mother is a natural as a middle-class, widowed IIT professor and a mother of three. The other actors all fit in the milieu.

October is not your normal box-office number-generating kind of a movie. It is arty and has a theme, of the flowers of Shiuli aka Parijaat that bloom only in a certain month and have a short life. The flowers look beautiful and have a lovely fragrance that lingers on even after they dry. The white and orange flowers resonate or represent the fate of the girl Shiuli Iyer.

October has amazing cinematography by Avik Mukhopadhyay and a good background score by Shantanu Moitra that add to the mood.

If this were not a Shoojit Sircar film, Banita Sandhu is a fresh face that would've had probably more close-up shots of hers before her accident to show her as the muse. That is what the audience would expect. Varun gets more shots. But like I said earlier, the director Shoojit Sircar and writer Juhi Chaturvedi are not suggesting a love story between Dan and Shiuli. There is none that is obvious. And hence the shots are also not planned that way, to their credit. No hints, no interpretations.

Is love for your beloved the only emotion to be taken care of? What about the love for your parents and friends? Dan's friends and especially his mom are distraught seeing how much he has given himself to the recovery of Shiuli, someone who is not even his lover. It is simply with the feeling that she may have been his girlfriend that he is so selfless in his love for her. This is because he gets a hint when he comes to know that Shiuli's last words before she fell down were "Where is Dan?". He may be feeling a little bit of guilt that she was thinking of him when she slipped from the third floor. He is also curious as to why she was thinking of him at all. After Shiuli's tragedy, the careless Dan has finally found a purpose in life. To take care of her and help her recover. He is finally focussed on something. He is growing up.

With October, Shoojit Sircar has not created wonders like in his Piku (2015), Vicky Donor (2012), Yahaan (2005), or Pink (2016) as producer. But he has not tried to do a Barfi! (2012) either. That is Anurag Basu's film. Sircar has stayed away from making October overly emotional. Juhi and him have added dashes of humour through Dan's personality to lighten the mood. 

So, October is NOT a depressing or sentimental movie that will make you cry buckets. You will but shed a few tears in the second half and in the end. It will leave you with a heavy heart but not like the usual tearjerker movie. Those films are also fine, considering how difficult it is to navigate the illness or disability of a loved one. But October is not a film like Love Story (1970), P.S. I Love You (2007), The Fault in Our Stars (2014), The Big Sick (2017) or Midnight Sun (2018), or even our Anand (1971) or Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003). October is just October.

Verdict: October is certainly a film for the World Cinema platform. No songs, good background music and theme, and natural performances. Indian audiences may not see a repeat value in it like maybe the classic Anand, directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and starring Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan. But for film students and lovers of soul-stirring cinema, October is a must watch. But I reckon it will be a film liked by all, because we all have had someone in the family who is either a terminally ill patient or who was on the ventilator and the doctors had to "take a decision" whether to let them live or not. What would you have done? What did your family do in such a situation? Without judging your own decision for your loved one, watch October to know what Shiuli's mother and Dan do.

Rating: 4/5.