\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the heart of Neeraj Ghaywan\u2019s Homebound<\/em> is the image of one young man carrying another.\u00a0Early in the film, we see the piggyback as a moment of laughter and joy.\u00a0By the end of the film, it\u2019s a desperate attempt to defy death.<\/p>\n \n\tThe man shouldering the burden is Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter).\u00a0He is carrying his childhood friend, Chandan (Vishal Jethwa).\u00a0Both are attempting to traverse the last few hundred miles to their village in the midst of the COVID pandemic.\u00a0One is Muslim, the other Dalit.\u00a0Both have spent their lives fighting bigotry and poverty, only to be further marginalized by disease and a lockdown.\u00a0Chandan is sick but Shoaib\u00a0doesn\u2019t give up on him.\u00a0He hauls him up on his back and keeps walking.\u00a0It\u2019s a powerful, searing symbol of humanity.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tHomebound\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/span> \tA powerful and empathetic tearjerker. \t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date:<\/strong> Friday, Sep. 26 \n\tExecutive produced by Martin Scorsese, Homebound<\/em> is based on an\u00a0op-ed written by Basharat Peer in The New York Times<\/em>, titled \u201cA Friendship, a Pandemic and a Death Beside the Highway.\u201d\u00a0From that 2020 article, Ghaywan has built out a narrative that hurls us, with both urgency and restraint, into the fault lines of India.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe film begins with both boys attempting to join the police force.\u00a0Their reasoning is that once you\u2019re wearing a uniform, faith and caste no longer matter. But it is an uphill battle, because there are approximately 714 candidates for each seat. Chandan doesn\u2019t want to be identified\u00a0as someone from an oppressed\u00a0caste.\u00a0Shoaib eventually gets a job where he is valued for his street smarts but also routinely reminded that he doesn\u2019t belong.\u00a0Eventually, both end up in Surat, in state of Gujarat. But when the pandemic hits, work is shut down, and they must find a way back across thousands of miles to their village.<\/p>\n \n\tSince his award-winning 2015 debut Masaan<\/em>, Ghaywan has become Hindi cinema\u2019s foremost chronicler of marginalized men and women.\u00a0His stories \u2014 consider his short films Juice<\/em> (2017) and Geeli Pucchi<\/em> (2021)\u00a0\u2014 aren\u2019t didactic or shrill. With control and craft, Ghaywan reveals the cruelty built into our social fabric and asks us to consider what part we play, consciously or unconsciously, in furthering it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHomebound<\/em> continues this theme. Shoaib\u00a0and Chandan are reminded again and again that they are, by virtue of their births, perceived as lesser.\u00a0There is a gut-wrenching sequence in which Chandan\u2019s mother (a superb Shalini Vatsa), who works in a village school, is forbidden from cooking for the children because of her caste.\u00a0When the protesting parents are reminded that what they are doing is unconstitutional, a father angrily replies, \u201cYou can keep your constitution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe noisy aggression cuts to silence. The woman is sitting alone looking at a photograph of the great B. R. Ambedkar, who was\u00a0the chief architect of the Indian constitution. Adopted in 1949, the document explicitly promises \u201cjustice, social, economic and political\u201d as a core guiding\u00a0principle.\u00a0And yet, more than 70 years later, discrimination remains deep and abiding.<\/p>\n \n\tThe precision, beauty and emotion in the film is built on strong writing (the screenplay is by Ghaywan and the story is by Peer, Ghaywan and Sumit Roy) and superb performances. Khatter and Jethwa shed their Bollywood baggage, as does\u00a0costar Janhvi\u00a0<\/strong>Kapoor as Chandan\u2019s love interest, demonstrating authenticity and the ability to deliver complex emotion.\u00a0Khatter, who started his career with Majid Majidi\u2019s\u00a02017 film\u00a0Beyond the Clouds<\/em>, is especially brilliant in his returns to his roots.<\/p>\n \n\tHomebound<\/em> is the story of ordinary people who find the courage and compassion to resist systemic cruelty.\u00a0On the long road home, Shoaib\u00a0and Chandan come to a tiny village. Shoaib\u00a0begs for water but is met with hostility.\u00a0Men, standing on a terrace, start to throw stones to drive them out \u2014 they are afraid that these two bring disease.\u00a0But a woman, her face covered by her ghoonghat<\/em> (veil), defies them.\u00a0She brings out a bucket, pours water into their cupped hands and quenches their thirst.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhich took me back to the end of Raj Kapoor\u2019s superb 1956 film Jagte Raho<\/em> (Stay Awake<\/em>), in which he plays a poor man who wanders into an apartment building looking for water but spends the night hiding and running because they take him for a thief.\u00a0When morning comes, he hears a bhajan<\/em> (religious song) and follows the sound, which leads him to Nargis, resplendent in white. She comes forth with a pot and pours water for him.\u00a0These small acts of kindness, these films seem to say, can save the world.<\/p>\n \n\tBe warned that Homebound<\/em> is a three-hankie weeper.\u00a0There is a scene between Shoaib\u00a0and Chandan\u2019s mother that destroyed me.\u00a0This is the best Hindi film of the year so far.\u00a0Don\u2019t miss it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the heart of Neeraj Ghaywan\u2019s Homebound is the image of one young man carrying another.\u00a0Early in the film, we see the piggyback as a moment of laughter and joy.\u00a0By the end of the film, it\u2019s a desperate attempt to defy death. The man shouldering the burden is Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter).\u00a0He is carrying his childhood<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1930,4572],"class_list":{"0":"post-25352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-films","9":"tag-indian"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Cast:<\/strong> Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa, Janhvi Kapoor
Director:<\/strong> Neeraj Ghaywan
Screenwriters:<\/strong> Neeraj Ghaywan, Basharat Peer, Sumit Roy
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 57 minutes\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n