A Novel Adaptation of A Novel

One Liner: Three point quite something (on a scale of 5).

The other day, while I was deciding on which movie to watch, 3 idiots never figured in my list. Reason – I thought it’s just a scene to scene cinematic adaptation of a novel. However, thanks to one of my friends I decided to go watch the movie.

Now, about the movie. As it’s quite clear in the promos and all, Aamir, Madhavan and Sharman are friends in graduation college and the movie is about their lives in the college. The basic set of characters are same as those of the book – Aamir is an thinking student, Madhavan is a staunch admirer of Aamir, Sharman is their friend who tries to move away from the two but comes back to them later and Kareena is director’s daughter and Aamir’s love interest. But the similarity almost ends here, except for a few scenes here and there.

This where the novelty aspect comes in. Aamir is not just an original thinker but also inspires others to lead more passionate and fulfilling lives. His romance with Kareena is limited and it doesn’t, unfortunately, end up in sex, as in the book (I particularly remember, Ryan, his character in the novel commenting about post-coitus smoking. Kareena, isn’t a doctor either in the book. Neither is she engaged in the print version. Their affair, in the book, is more in accordance with their ages and appropriately more juvenile. Frankly, in the movie it seems a little mixed up, in a typical Bollywood style.

Coming to Aamir, true,he is looking quite young for his age but there’s difference between looking young and looking like a youngster. The same applies for Madhavan and Kareena. Rajkumar Hirani, leveraging his name, could have cast some fresh faces. Not that the actors in the film didn’t do justice to their roles. Sharman Joshi performed beautifully in the job interview scene and so did Madhavan in the scene where he tries to convince his parents about his future plans. However, it’s the performance of Boman Irani that really stands out. The way he lives out his role, yet again, is exemplary. His gait, his voice modulation, his antics, all went into making the character true to life. The way he portrayed his frustration, anger or helplessness in different scenes are just awesome. I really loved his performance in his last scene with Aamir when he gifts the latter his favorite pen.

For his part, Aamir, yet again, donned an educator role after Tare Zameen Par and it called for too in the current times of IIT foundation course from Std VI. However, while in TZP he doesn’t take a centre stage; in 3 Idiots he had an overarching constant presence. Given the original story, I found it a little jarry . Kareena sported a new look that’s less loud and non-yuppie. Her role, though short, is decent and not just-for-romance types.

Regarding cinematography and background music, they are decent and non-intrusive. The picturesque scenes on the way to ladakh were captured well. I particularly liked the aerial shot in the initial part of the film when the camera takes us along the beautiful hill terrain over to the highway. Coming to songs, their timing is not abrupt and a couple of them are hummable too. However, given Shantanu Moitra’s name, I personally expected a little more from the album.

Finally, as I see, and I see it so quite often, the hero of the film is the director. The way the plot and characters are suitably remoulded, I think, makes for a classic case study of how to successfully adapt a novel Rajkumar Hirani has proved, yet again, that he is a master in dealing with human strengths, frailties and emotions. What I see as the most commendable achievement is the way the movie brought this message – in life, one should pursue what one loves most and is extremely passionate about. As one strives for excellence, success will automatically follow.