- Review: Khari Biscuit
- Director : Sanjay Jadhav
- Star Cast: Miss Vedashree Khadilkar, Master Adarsh Kadam, Nandita Patkar & Sushant Shelar
- Story, Screenplay & Dialogues: Sanket Mane, Sachin Mote & Chetan Saudane Respectively.
- Producer: Zee Studios, Dreaming Twenty Four 7 & Deepak Pandurang Rane
Quick Viewpoint: Sanjay Jadhav’s ‘Khari Biscuit’ has it’s flaws if looked objectively without being emotionally attached. But the problem is, it is really hard to detach ourselves emotionally even while judging the film! If a film manages to do that to you, I consider it a really good film irrespective of the flaws!
What Works?
- First & foremost the credit to the film’s effectiveness should go to the three writers who have worked on the film; Sanket Mane, Sachin Mote & Chetan Saudane. On all three fronts of story, screenplay & dialogues ‘Khari Biscuit’ is built with a singular objective of relating the audience on an emotional level. They primarily succeed when we are by the side of the protagonist (the brother ‘biscuit’) quite quickly when the film starts. And then throughout we look at the obstacles coming in the way of our protagonist in a very sensitive way.
- The performances of the two lead kids are wonderful. While the little girl Vedashree Khadilkar pours sweetness into many little moments in the film, her elder brother played by Adarsh Kadam is throughout brilliant. His earnestness and sincerity in every scene that he features in is eye catching!
- Along with the emotional connect through the children’s story the film connects to us emotionally on another important front! Cricket is a religion in our country and for the longest time Sachin Tendulkar has been it’s god! This film understands that & uses that to it’s benefit beautifully! If you have ever been that cricket fan who sits in one position throughout the game as some superstition towards India winning or Sachin scoring, ‘Khari Biscuit’ is a tribute to you and your kind!
- Many films are made in order to romanticize the message of ‘hope’. It’s a very common trait of film messaging from the beginning of time! I think new films made today about ‘hope’ don’t get any by default credit for choosing it as the film’s major inspirational strategy, but when those films actually make you ‘feel’ hopeful that is when you have to give the due credit to them! And ‘Khari Biscuit’ made me feel ‘hopeful’!
- There’s a dialogue in the film where the elderly, motherly figure played by Nandita Patkar makes the protagonist realize that why ‘lies’ are important in a poor man’s life. And how ‘lies’ make their reality liveable. That moment to me puts into perspective the entire film and also makes feeling ‘hopeful’ more logical and meaningful!
What Fails?
- The film will ask for suspension of disbelief from the audiences and those who can’t manage it won’t be diving deep emotionally in the film. And if there’s no emotional connection for a viewer the entire film will loose all of it’s charm on him/her.
- While the film is shot decently enough in actual real locations in Mumbai, the stress is not on making the reality hit hard. To some extent if the film made the audiences realize about the harsher obstacles kids living on their own on the streets face, the emotional grip of the film on us would have only been tighter!
- By the end of the film there’s a track where the protagonist and his friends gets involved into something that is morally, ethically questionable. However the treatment given to this is pretty casual and superficial. Again there was scope to make it more harsher and hence more emotionally effective!
Final Verdict: Sanjay Jadhav is a director who has always reinvented himself at regular intervals. ‘Khari Biscuit’ is the first film in his newest reinvention of himself! And in my opinion he has managed to bring together his stylistic (commercially) way of cinema along with the cinema that appeals to us on a human level for it’s emotional truth!
