Serious Men

Serious Men
Image source: Google

Ratings: 3.5/5

Director: Sudhir Mishra

Writer: Bhavesh Mandalia, Niren Bhatt, Manu Joseph, Abhijeet Khuman, Nikhil Nair

Production: Bombay Fables, Cineraas Entertainment

Genre: Dark comedy

Language: Hindi

Release Date: 2nd October 2020

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Star Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Indira Tiwari, Nassar, Aakshath Das, Sanjay Narvekar, Shweta Basu Prasad

Plot:

The story follows Ayyan Mani, a middle-aged Dalit working as an assistant to a Brahmin astronomer at the Institute of Theory and Research in Mumbai. He lives in slum with his wife and a son. Furious at his situation in life, Ayyan develops an outrageous story that his 10-year-old son is a mathematical genius - a lie which later gets out of control.

Review:

Sudhir Mishra’s latest, Serious Men, an adaptation of Manu Joseph’s debut novel, is centred on aspirational India.

Ayyan Mani (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a Tamil Dalit who lives in a Mumbai slum with his wife and son, represents an Indian who wants a better life, and will do anything he can in order to achieve it. He is a clerk at a premier research institute. The film shows the chief participants, Brahmins- who are shown to be the beneficiaries of the country’s caste divide. This in turn angers Ayyan. Every day at work feels like a brutal passing of time for Ayyan, reminding him of social and economic hierarchy time and again.

His boss, Arvind (Nassar), is researching the possibility of alien microbes in Earth’s stratosphere. Ayyan is never highly taken aback or fascinated: of serious men hiding behind laptops, painting not-so-serious works to a big deal of optimum importance; relying on English to emit authoritarian persona and power.

Ayyan has taken the philosophy of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. He intends to first join and then beat them. He knows that this is a game of deception and confidence. He talks in enough English to negotiate sticky situations; he adjusts to the system to win a conversation; he executes with enough confidence. At one point, he literally repeats Arvind’s line (“if you could do it, you’d be me”). And then one day, Ayyan finds the one weapon used by countless upper-caste men to further their ambition, to regain control, to take revenge: He becomes a father.

Adi (Aakshath Das), a mediocre student is trained by his father to look like a child prodigy. Inspired from Tathagat Avatar Tulsi in the novel, Adi was the most fascinating part of the film. The rules of the game, as explained by Ayyan, are pretty simple: drop big words, float random scientific facts, talk in English, own the room, and use arrogance to bail yourself out. It’s hilarious when Adi responds to an old scam and says, “I can’t deal with primitive minds”.

Nawaz is extremely good and convincing in channelling Ayyan’s boiling, internal anger into something that the audience will sympathise for! Indira Tiwari who plays his simple but spirited wife Oja keeps up the treatment of the film at par with Nawaz. Newcomer Aakshath Das here is so refreshingly earnest and honest that one would fall for his character and his situations. Veteran actor Nassar who plays Dr. Acharya gets his tone right as do all the other characters whom Mani encounters including the Carnegie Mellon grad Anuja, played beautifully by Shweta Basu Prasad, who harbours political ambitions and is reflective of the young Indian.

Within a span of two hours the movie skilfully unravels the layers to take us right into the heart of the story: laying a society where politicians, corporate vultures and the average man on the street are always in a tussle to erase the other’s existence.