October

About the film

October is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Shoojit Sircar, and produced by Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar under their Rising Sun Films banner. The film stars Banita Sandhu, Gitanjali Rao, and Varun Dhawan. Both Sandhu and Rao debuted as actors with this film. Written by Juhi Chaturvedi and shot by Avik Mukhopadhyay, the film follows the life of a hotel-management intern who takes care of his comatose fellow intern in an unconditional and unconventional manner.

Initially scheduled to release on 1 June 2018, the film was released on 13 April 2018, grossing over ₹ 584.1 million worldwide. Upon its release, the filmmakers were accused of plagiarising Aarti – The Unknown Love Story, a Marathi film directed by Sarika Mene. Screenwriters Association reviewed the case and found some similarities between the two films. However, it cleared October of plagiarism charges as the real-life events that likely inspired both the films were not protected by copyright laws.

Plot

Shiuli Iyer and Danish "Dan" Walia work as interns at the Radisson Blu hotel in New Delhi. Shiuli, being very disciplined and responsible towards her job, is the polar opposite of Dan who is careless and irresponsible towards his job. At the beginning of the story, Dan struggles with his job serving various departments of the hotel. He doesn't seem to have a very good relationship with his fellow staff members except for two of his friends who work at the same hotel as interns.

On New Year's Eve, Shiuli and her friends party on the 3rd floor of the hotel, when Dan is nowhere to be found. Shiuli accidentally falls off the terrace and is hospitalized, going into coma. While other members of the hotel staff visit her at the hospital, Dan gets seriously affected when his friends tell him that Shiuli's last words just before her fall were "Where is Dan?". Dan starts visiting the hospital every day, despite that negatively affecting both his job and his relationship with his friends who still cover his shifts and help him financially. After a scuffle at the hotel, Dan is terminated. He finds comfort being with Shiuli who slowly starts to improve and Dan's mere presence calms Shiuli. He devotes his entire time to taking care of her.

Seeing Dan's career and personal life drowning due to his devotion towards Shiuli, her mother Vidya decides to make him go and take care of himself. Dan joins another hotel in Kullu as manager but is unable to take his mind off Shiuli. Soon he learns of Shiuli's failing health in Delhi and returns. He apologises for leaving her abruptly and promises to stay with her. Seeing Dan, Shiuli calms and begins to improve again. She is soon discharged from the hospital and is brought home where Dan continues taking care of her. He takes her to a park and asks her why she remembered him before her fall. Shiuli responds by trying to say his name aloud. The following night Shiuli suffers a seizure and dies as her lungs collapsed. Emotionally broken, Dan visits Shiuli's home and comforts her family. Afterwards, he is seen collecting her death certificate tearfully.

Production

The idea behind the film was conceived and inspired by newspaper articles and reports about whether comatose people and those with brain injuries hear when we talk to them and the spiritual exercise which brings them back.

Principal photography began in September 2017, and concluded in November 2017. The film was entirely shot in Delhi at Dwarka with a few portions shot in Connaught Place, New Delhi and Defence Colony, South Delhi. In Delhi, it was also shot in a 5-star hotel for 30 days where Varun Dhawan practiced as a hotel management student, performing his daily chores and the idea behind which was for Varun to grasp body-language and behaviour to bring more authenticity to his character in the film.

Marketing and release

Varun Dhawan and Rising Sun Films first teased October in a 10-second clip released on 23 January 2018 to their official Twitter and YouTube handles, respectively. On 14 February 2018, the first-look teaser trailer of the film was released. It was followed by the release of first-look (also theatrical release) poster and official trailer on 9 March 2018 and 12 March 2018. In an interview, Shoojit Sircar said that writers do not get much credit like they do in the West. He said, "It is important to acknowledge all the technicians in the film, especially the one who conceives it, the writers". He feels that a writer's contribution is as important as any actor's or director's. This was the reason which made him "deliberately" give Juhi Chaturvedi's credit in the trailer and "made sure the industry notices". He further added that the Hindi film industry doesn't think writing to be important. For them, it's more "the actor, then the director, how you shoot the film and how expensive".

Initially, the film was scheduled to release on 1 June 2018. But in October 2017, Dhawan, in one of his tweets, revealed that the release date has been advanced. The film was released on 13 April 2018 across 2308 screens worldwide.

Music

The soundtrack is composed by Shantanu Moitra, Abhishek Arora and Anupam Roy, and features playback singers such as Armaan Malik, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Sunidhi Chauhan and Monali Thakur. The background score of the film is composed by Moitra who also provided music for 3 tracks on the film's soundtrack album. It was released on 28 March 2018 by Zee Music Company and generally received positive reviews from the critics. The album consists of five tracks whose lyrics are penned by Abhiruchi Chand, Tanveer Ghazi and Swanand Kirkire.

Key details