Homecoming (SonyLIV)
Starring Sayani Gupta, Hussain Dalal, Plabita Borthakur, Tushar Pandey
Written & Directed by Somyajit Majumdar
Rating: * ½
This is a very difficult film to view,let alone review. Not because of its self-conscious complexities but because nothing happens. It purports to be this millenial’s version of Govind Nihalani’s Party but falls short on style substance performances and , sadly, music.
The music is crucial to the efficacy of the weightless storytelling. Weightless, and not in a good way. Wispy storytelling is wise when applied to a cerebrally elevated plot. Homecoming just fakes its cerebral overtures. The intellectual posturings of a bunch of young non-conformists one night in an ancestral home in Kolkata have no rippling effect.
These are bunch of losers who are all talk. There is no motion in their ocean which in fact is a stagnant pond that they think to be an ocean. They talk,they smoke pot, they make out, they talk again, eat, drink, abuse the system , amuse the elders.Two of them, played by Sayani Gupta and Hussain Dalal end up locked up in a cellar in the bungalow which has seen better days, talking about why they need to stay away from one another.
The characters are jumpy and fidgety, hopping from one conversation to another on the decadence of Kolkata versus their own burgeoning intellect which pines for a release. Not one character is memorable, because , well, nobody is worth a second glance. I can bet anything that all the anti-establishment posturing and haranguing would be forgotten the next morning.I shudder to think how stagnant a sequel would be! No no ! The idea is repellent.
While the narration is sluggish and aimless the actors seem unequal to the task of upholding a takathon where self-mockery is strictly taboo. Hence we have one of the protagonists Sri(Sayani Gupta) belting out a Bangla song redolent of the past as it merges into the future. Just as one begins to savour her singing , a character butts in about how much she hates Bangla songs because they are so pretentious.
And yet nothing can equal the phoniness of this wildly experimental excursion into an excruciatingly plodding self-searching.
While the narration desperately needs an anchor the actors mouth dialogues that sounds like a specially embittered whatsapp group raging against the Establishment, for no rhyme or reason. This is a frustrating sterile work with characters who are either talking abut s*x and alcohol or trying to find these in dark corners of a Kolkata bungalow that has seen better days.
So have we.