Chhichhore

About the film

Chhichhore (transl. Frivolous) is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language coming-of-age comedy-drama directed by Nitesh Tiwari in association with Piyush Gupta and Nikhil Mehrotra, and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala under Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, with Fox Star Studios acquiring the distribution rights. Based on Tiwari's experiences as a student of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the film stars Sushant Singh Rajput, Shraddha Kapoor, Varun Sharma, Naveen Polishetty (in his Hindi Debut), Tahir Raj Bhasin, Tushar Pandey and Saharsh Kumar Shukla in the lead roles, with Shishir Sharma and Mohammad Samad in supporting roles.

Set parallelly in the 1990s and 2019, Chhichhore tells the story of Aniruddh Pathak, a middle-aged divorced man whose son, Raghav, tries to commit suicide after failing to clear the JEE entrance examination, and who, despite survival, is unwilling to live due to the fear of being branded as a "loser", which makes a desperate Anniruddh recount his own experience to Raghav of his own time at college, wherein he and his five friends too were called 'losers', and how they managed to remove that tag; as he continues along to narrate his story, the other five join their friend and complete the story.

Plot

Anirudh "Anni" Pathak is a divorced, middle-aged man living with his teenage son, Raghav, an aspiring student anxiously awaiting the results of the highly competitive engineering entrance examination. When the results are announced, a devastated Raghav discovers he has failed to qualify. Overwhelmed by the paralyzing fear of being permanently stigmatized as a "loser"—a label he believes his accomplished parents never faced—Raghav attempts suicide by jumping from a balcony. He survives the fall but is hospitalized in critical condition. As his medical team, led by Dr. Kasbekar, struggles to stabilize him, Anni realizes that Raghav is rapidly losing the will to live, causing his vitals to plummet. Desperate to revive his son's spirit, Anni begins recounting his own undergraduate days, determined to prove that failure is merely a detour rather than a final destination.

In 1992, a young Anni joins the prestigious National College of Technology and is assigned to Hostel 4 (H4), a residential block notoriously designated as the residence of the campus "Losers." There, he quickly integrates with a colorful group of eccentric misfits: Gurmeet "Sexa" Singh Dhillon, a hyper-sexual senior; Himanshu "Acid" Deshmukh, an aggressive foul-mouthed student; Sundar "Mummy" Srivastava, an overprotected, naive freshman; Harish "Bevda" Saxena, a brilliant senior perpetually incapacitated by alcoholism; and Derek, the brooding, highly competitive hostel leader. Anni also falls in love with Maya, the most popular girl on campus.

Despite their dismal reputation, the H4 residents form a tight-knit brotherhood. Tired of the relentless humiliation orchestrated by Raggie, the arrogant leader of the elite Hostel 3 (H3), the H4 group resolves to shed their derogatory label by competing fiercely in the college's annual General Championship (GC). H3 traditionally dominates the tournament through athletic superiority and systematic intimidation.

Production

Chhichhore is inspired by writer-director Nitesh Tiwari's own experiences of college life as a metallurgical engineering student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, his alma-mater, which is depicted in the film as the 'National College of Technology'; although not completely biographical in nature, it features character sketches loosely inspired by Tiwari himself as protagonist Aniruddha Pathak, as well as some of his closest friends and seniors. Some of the scenes were incorporated from the lives of co-writers Piyush Gupta and Nikhil Mehrotra, who worked under Tiwari at Leo Burnett.

Filming began on 30 September 2018, and first schedule was wrapped on 30 October 2018. The second schedule started on 14 November 2018 and wrapped on 15 December 2018. Major portions of the film were shot at IIT Bombay. The theme song was shot at a cost of ₹9 crores (₹90 million). This marked the reunion of choreographers Bosco–Caesar after three years. Shane Nigam was supposed to play the role of a Malayali student, but opted out due to scheduling conflicts with Kumbalangi Nights; he was subsequently replaced by newcomer Abhishek Joseph George.

Marketing and release

Over the close of February 2019, the cast of the film donned their characters' costume video on the making of the poster on 30 May 2019.

The film was theatrically released in India on 6 September 2019. It was screened at 51st International Film Festival of India in January 2021 in the Indian Panorama section.

The film had a theatrical release in China on 7 January 2022, the first in two years following a de facto ban on Indian films there due to the 2020–2021 China–India skirmishes.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the film was composed by Pritam, while the lyrics were written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The album became chartbuster. "Khairiyat" became one of the very first Bollywood songs to reach 1 billion + views only in 4 years of release. "Kal Ki Hi Baat Hai" also become super hit.

Reception

Sukanya Verma reviewing for Rediff felt that Chhichhore offered "too good a time to pay attention to its faults", giving the film 3.5 out of 4 stars. Sreeparna Sengupta of The Times of India gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5, praising the performances of Sushant Singh Rajput, Shraddha Kapoor, Varun Sharma and Tahir Raj Bhasin. Sengupta noted that the screenplay was predictable and the pace was slow, but the film had a theme of academic success that connected with youngsters and parents, writing that, "it [Chhichhore] tells you that the journey is far more important than the destination and that losing is as critical a life lesson as winning. The film scores high on many accounts and is certainly worth watching." Monika Rawal Kukreja from Hindustan Times wrote that, "the Sushant Singh Rajput-Shraddha Kapoor film takes you on a nostalgia trip to your college days with an engaging narrative and flashback sequences". Rahul Desai of Film Companion praised the film, calling it a "solid, homegrown college movie for the ages", further adding that, "Chhichhore is a hoot, but it's not flawless. Eventually though, it's Tiwari's understanding of mainstream emotional dynamics that tide the missteps over to frame an enjoyable film". Rajeev Masand, reviewing for News18 gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5, calling it [Chhichhore] "good, harmless fun". Bollywood Hungama in its review wrote that, "o…

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