Readers Write In #740: All India Rank, warm, nostalgic, often lovely, but frustratingly incomplete

By Prashila Naik

Bikharne ka mujhko shauk hai bada, sametega mujhko tu bata jara

These are the verses of the soulful song from Qala, that is penned by Varun Grover who also has a small but impactful acting role in the movie. While in Qala, the ethereal romantic hues of this song including its picturization are soon overcast with the dark black-swan-ish manifestations – both physical and psychological – of Qala’s inner mental world, I was reminded of these very words while watching Varun Grover’s directorial debut “All India Rank”. Kota Factory and 12th fail may arguably be the reasons for the relatively low hype around this movie, having not watched either of these but having watched the relatively low key but raw and intense Lakhon ki baat created by another stand up comedian+IIT-an like Grover, Biswa Kalyan Rath, I felt All India Rank scores its points by showcasing in mostly good detail, the ecosystem around these aspirants, through the lives and times of their parents and the worlds around them. It is these parents that are getting through lives that are falling apart and held together by only the hopes they have vested in their children. There is romanticization of the “sametna” here too, but just of a different kind.

All India Rank stars Bodhisattva Sharma as Vivek. It took a Youtube comment to figure out he was the same actor who played the protagonist’s son in Patal Lok. The characters are very different and Bodhisattva does his best to bring to life a young boy who is somewhat thrust into the world of coaching and mock IITs and stocked up laddus, by no real choice of his own. While he does understand that an IIT can also bring him a lot of good, he isn’t exactly fitting into the scene or the desperation it seems to symbolize for generations across India. The initial parts of the movie feel very similar to a TVF show from the mid 2010s but Grover puts his visually rich imagination as a lyricist and a film maker to blend realism into animated images through the silly but fun “Noodles sa dil” that sounds much like the disco songs from 80s and early 90s, as the credits roll along. We are also introduced to the parents early on. The father, a government employee who is unable to get to the higher rungs on his own abilities and who smokes only on independence related holidays as he believes that smoking indicates that one is losing control – there is an echo to this scene much later but not much of the bite it should have brought along with it. And then there is the mother played wonderfully by Geeta Agrawal Sharma who craves for all the laddus, gulab jamuns and halwas in the world but simply does not have the bodily constitution to digest them. It seems funny at first but soon the light chuckle turns darker and darker. 

Apart from the protagonist and his parents, Grover also does decently to recreate the 90s and the ‘aspirations’ it brought along but not without the limitations of our middle class lives and still struggling independent country, for so many of us Indian children of that time. Doordarshan gave way to Cable TV, but STD calls were still very precious and the dreaded 4 minute mark and tracking of seconds to cover any leftover important talking points. There is also a hilarious nod to Shawn Michaels that soon turns unexpectedly deranged. I wasn’t a big fan of the way an actor of Sheeba Chaddha’s caliber was utilized in the movie but she makes a good fun turn playing the coaching center founder cum teacher who we are told started with just 5 students and now has hundreds of the ‘cream’ of students vying for a place in her class. There is also a premonitory mention of the death of Princess Diana with one character telling another “sundar logon ko duniya jeene kaha deti hai”.

Varun Grover’s writing is absolutely natural. His dialogues evoke the times, the temperament, the desperations and joys that make adolescence and childhood so unforgettable. But the editing and screenplay felt random at times. As a nod to his skills as a lyricist, there are multiple songs strewn through the story’s running time with only one song having some lip syncing of sorts. But these songs don’t really register or add anything to the narrative as the protagonist still remains a bit of a construct never really evolving into a person. He makes friends, starts “liking” a girl who likes him first, has his first drink, moans about chucking IIT, does many things that are meant to show his coming of age but never really do so. What happens in his parents’ life however showcases the empathy and complexity in Grover’s writing. There is an excellent depiction of panic attack that is calmed down by the unlikeliest of things. There is also a rebuttal of the father’s earlier declaration that good character students will go to IIT and other universities are meant for “goondai”. But just when there seems to be a good time to join up these stories and bring at least a sense of a satisfactory pit stop, if not a full fledged conclusion, the movie comes to a complete halt. I wondered if this ending drew from the scene where Vivek comes back home after a long time only to see so much has changed. His reaction is unnaturally muted and could be hastily termed a sudden bout of lazy writing and screenplay, but the heartfelt performances of the mother and especially the father, even if with a mostly unfleshed coup de grace from one of them, seem to somewhat do their magic. Life may have just moved on for Vivek, and for us the viewers too.

I wanted to like All India Rank much more than I did. I was mostly entertained but not much moved and knowing that the writer/maker is capable of doing that just felt like a missed opportunity. And yet, I hope Varun Grover makes more movies and tries themes and expositions that are not directly or indirectly derived from his own experiences.