Hichki — Reel Simple

Anyone who’s watched anything from “Dead Poets Society” and “Lean on Me” to “Parichay” and “Taare Zameen Par,” will have seen the plot of writer/director Siddharth Malhotra’s “Hichki” coming from a mile away. Like its preceding teacher/student films, Hichki relies largely on the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” formula of a wide-eyed teacher who, with their unorthodox, often eccentric educational mechanisms, inspires a group of wayward pupils into academic perseverance. Faced with a premise so predictable, then, watching “Hichki” becomes less about what the story is as much as it is about what it’s adding to a story we already know.

To that effect, Malhotra, along with co-writers Anckur Chaudhry, Ganesh Pandit, and Ambar Hadap, have solid source material to work with. Based on Brad Cohen’s autobiographical book, Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had, “Hichki” offers a main character, Naina Mathur (Rani Mukerji) whose challenge isn’t solely to tame a classroom of 14 ninth graders (and textbook teen terrors) cobbled together from the nearby slums; she must also rise above the involuntary tics spawned by her Tourette’s, which have cost her a job at 18 schools, long been held against her by her own father, and are now making her the laughingstock of her students.

As Naina faces skeptical colleagues and the kids face impending exams, what emerges is their shared bond, and collective call for acceptance and equal opportunity from social and educational systems that are inherently stacked against them.

But what begins as an encouraging—if not slightly overripe—message soon crosses the line into being contrived, as Malhotra and his team consistently opt for low-hanging fruit as convenient fixes to what would, in reality, be far more complex issues. From Naina deciding that a know-how of cooking okra can qualify a student to be a chemist, to her visiting the slums in hopes of conducting parent-teacher conferences, the intentions to inspire are optimistic, but come across as more naïve than stimulating.

Aggravating the simplistic narrative choices are the supporting cast, many of whom are outlines without substance, including Neeraj Kabi, who checks off the stock antagonist box as the uptight teacher Mr. Walia, and Naina’s hastily-etched students, whose angsty personalities we so rarely get more than cursory glimpses of that empathy for them is difficult to muster.

Hichki’s potential to resonate, therefore, rests almost entirely on Naina’s shoulders. Although she repeatedly explains her condition to the many school principals (or really, the audience) she encounters during the film, I still can’t claim to know nearly enough about Tourette Syndrome, so assessing the authenticity of Mukerji’s depiction here is out of my realm. Still, from the perspective of impact, it’s a win for the actress who, returning to the screen after a four-year absence, fills Naina with a warmth and indomitable spirit one can’t help but get at least somewhat swept up in; her hiatus has done little to dampen her natural screen presence, and we’re reassured once again that almost any character is safe in her hands.

While “Hichki” may not be telling us anything particularly new, Mukerji’s sincere delivery of a trite theme makes the film a feel-good, easy watch that may tug a heartstring or two yet.