Often times it is easy to see all the problems with Bollywood movies. The predictable stories, the cheesy love songs, and the inevitable happy endings. 3 Idiots takes all of these elements and reminds us why we love Bollywood. Namely, Bollywood takes us to a place where all of that fantasy becomes reality. We want to be lost in a world where true love is all around us and we make fun of everything. The movie finds a way to do this but also touches our hearts with somber stories of slum life, disapproving parents, and broken love.
Between the main characters and all their individual stories, everyone will certainly find a way to relate to the story. Aamir Khan plays Rancho, the man who comes into school with the audacity to change not only the system of teaching in India but also everyone’s attitudes toward life. The headmaster, Virus, finds the true joy of learning; his daughter, Pia(Kareena Kapoor), sees that the cheesy love stories in Indian movies exist because true love does make us dream of the perfect kiss in the rain. Fehran realizes that to truly excel in something, you must enjoy it, and he learns how to love his disapproving parents while disobeying their greatest wish of him becoming an engineer. Raju comes to understand that joy and honesty with himself are better motivators than fear, and living in the present is the only way to find success in the future. Tied into all these stories are experiences of slum life, superficial love, paralyzed family members, coma, suicide, dead siblings, and even how bad we feel when our best friends outdo our best efforts.
The movie brings you in with relate-able stories then gets you to laugh. The funny scenes start right at the beginning when Fehran fakes his death to stop a plane and continues all the way through the ragging scene; Silencer’s speech where a couple words are changed; and a wonderful wedding crasher scene. Even at the very end of the movie Silencer hilariously ends up getting electrocuted by kids when he attempts to pee on Ranchos school and soon after drops his pants to respect Rancho, which coincidentally is the most symbolic scene in the movie. Here Silencer represents success as he chases after Rancho who represents excellence. Herein lies why it is so easy to love the movie.
3 Idiots’ true perfection is in the way that it finds a way to make you laugh during each of most intense scenes, even the sad ones. The mastery is most prevalent after the headmaster tries to tear apart the 3 idiot’s friendship. He forces Raju to decide whether to expel himself or Rancho from school. Facing the most difficult pressure he has ever felt in his life, Raju jumps out the 3rd story window. His best friends rush him to the hospital where he bleeds and falls into a coma. Rancho, Fehran, and all his family and friends do everything they can to keep happy thoughts in his head and snap him out of the a coma. Rancho immediately starts out by creating lies about how his mother has purchased ten beautiful saaris, and that the headmaster has forgiven him. Fehran begins to wake when all his classmates throw darts at a picture of the headmaster and in the happiest moment of the movie, he finally awakes when Rancho develops a lie about how his 28-year-old sister is finally getting married, and with no dowry, and to his best friend Fehran! (Fehran’s terrified face during this interaction is priceless) The whole scene is incredibly and innately depressing because one of the most lovable characters in the movie is near death but Rancho’s jovial and novel attitude toward the situation makes you smile with tears in your eyes.
We want to crash weddings, pee on our evil teacher’s doorstep, and dance in the shower. Rancho’s journey lets us experience childish joy through a story of very mature and complicated subjects.3 Idiots is a comedy, and a drama, and will keep your emotions flowing the whole time.The characters bring you in with the very relatable stories of the college guys drinking making fun of each other, to true love, to sad stories. After even the American Indian youth relate with this Bollywood masterpiece, it makes you cry and laugh throughout it all while having fun the whole time. No American movie would ever let us dream of a world where Raju gets an engineering job after being the worst student in the class, or that the love of our life would blossom in the exact way we dreamt it. Rarely does a movie come along that takes what we hate about Indian movies and brings them together to remind us that we love Bollywood for its fantastic world that sweeps us off our feet and brings out every one of our emotions in two and a half hours of greatness. 3 Idiots does just that.
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