Serious Men
Year: 2020
Director: Sudhir Mishra
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Aakshath Das, M. Nasser, Indira Tiwari, Shweta Basu Prasad, Sanjay Narvekar

What is the plot?

A perpetually yelled-at, lowly assistant in a government-run scientific research organization harnesses his resentment into a burning ambition. He wants his young child to be a genius prodigy, someone who would be recognized far and away, someone who would change the family’s social fortunes for the better. Wouldn’t that be a perfect rejoinder to the snooty scientist (M. Nasser) he is serving? But will this dream ever come to fruition? Will the father-son duo beat the system that has worked against the poor people like them for centuries?

What is hot?

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the embittered, driven father ready to go to any lengths to achieve his dream, Indira Tiwari as his spirited, exasperated wife, and Nasser as his nose-in-the-air, arrogant boss, are superb. Aakshath Das as a precocious young kid trying hard to fulfil his father’s ambitions is a winner. Shweta Basu Prasad and Sanjay Narvekar, too, leave their mark as the opportunistic politicians.

What is not?

The film loses pace at times and seems a tad too long.

Verdict

Sudhir Mishra’s Serious Men is at one level, a touching father-son drama, where an ambitious father is pushing his young son up the ladder of success, and at another level, a cynical social satire on the class-and-caste politics, and the resultant conflicting attitudes. Some excellent performances and the dark tragi-comic storyline make this film worth a watch.

Rating

3 stars