When asked about the best days of our life, most of us go into flashback mode and think of our school and college days. The time when friends were family and midnight shenanigans and midnight cravings went hand-in-hand. Nostalgia, accompanied with envy, hits you the moment you see a group of carefree college students. Because time moves in one direction.
Nitesh Tiwari, an IIT Bombay passout, taps into this nostalgia and presents us Chhichhore, to evoke our college memories. College dramas are something that the audience, no matter the generation, have always leaned on.
It’s the safest bet for a successful film. Some hostel pranks, a college romance, promises to keep in touch with friends, a sports tournament, a tragedy – and you have got yourself a full-on entertainer. (And once in a lifetime, you also have a 3 Idiots. But once in a lifetime.)
Director Nitesh Tiwari, back on the director’s chair after the massive blockbuster Dangal, does all of that. He is that first-bencher who would meticulously take down all notes point-by-point and vomit them back on the answer sheet sans any creativity. Chhichhore is a classic case of that very learning the formula to success by rote but not knowing how to apply it in real life syndrome.
The film starts with Aniruddh and Maya’s (Sushant Singh Rajput and Shraddha Kapoor) son involved in a tragedy after failing to secure a coveted seat in India’s top engineering college, unlike his father and mother, who were rank holders.
This leads to a reunion between Aniruddh and his college friends – Varun Sharma as Sexa, Tahir Raj Bhasin as Derek, Naveen Polishetty as Acid, Tushar Pandey as Mummy and Saharsh Shukla as Bevda.