3 Idiots

I almost now associate an Aamir Khan film with the worst of cinema: Dil Chahta Hai, Rang de Basanti, 3 Idiots (of course, I didn't even bother to see Taare Zameen Par). Those three are pretty much united around one single thought: an expectation of how youth behave, and should behave, an attempt to make a norm. The most striking thing is how people love being defined, and hence the films: I will set out on a course trying to learn myself.

3 Idiots does not merely make your blood boil by its propagandist intentions: it also disappoints terribly by having no story at all, and the skeleton that stands without any logic at all. I would have said the ending of the film an add-on eyesore, if I had believed the film to be moving in any direction at all till that moment. Not only could I completely not understand that why a man who claims to be in love with a girl has in fact cut himself off from her quite conveniently and happily and without any compulsions to do so, but I also couldn't understand if this was Ayn Rand in a supposedly light-hearted makeover? After all, if the film starts with hurly-burlies of giving out 'messages', then it should send out the right ones, if any: by suddenly projecting the protagonist as some kind of super-genius, the film in fact reinforces the notions of those parents who want their children to be doctors and engineers - they do that since they don't think their kids to be super-geniuses! And their prescription is, if not, then do this, it will at least ensure money, and thus whatever you want with the money. By equating everything with success, as at the end of the film, what is the point sought to be made?

The actors are decent, there's a zing of freshness to the print of the film (!), and the far and few in-betweens of the Shivaliks and Upper Himalayas are a delight to watch; and on those crutches, a film presumes to call itself a work of cinema. And also earns money, and money, and money. Incredible!