‘Homebound’ review: Neeraj Ghaywan’s empathetic Indian drama is backed by EP Martin Scorsese

Dir/scr: Neeraj Ghaywan. India. 2025. 117mins.

Does being homebound point out remaining the place one is, or does it recommend travelling again to at least one’s roots? The phrase holds a number of meanings for 2 pals residing on India’s fringes and searching for to defy their marginalisation by heading to the town to take a seat for police division exams. Making its world premiere in Un Sure Regard, Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound spans a couple of harrowing and tragic years within the lives of Muslim and scheduled caste (previously ‘dalit’ or ‘untouchable’) pals, and paints a vivid portrait of the battle confronted by India’s invisible inhabitants to conduct a dignified and joyful existence. Deeply empathetic and more and more common, Ghaywan’s sophomore effort isn’t significantly delicate, however that does little to dilute the movie’s affect or detract from its message.

Ishaan Khatter and Vishal Jethwa have a pure, plausible dynamic 

It’s straightforward to see why Martin Scorsese got here on board early as an govt producer: the Imply Streets undercurrents are sturdy in Homebound, albeit with much less crime and loansharking. Ghaywan revisits a few of the territory he explored in his 2015 debut Masaan, additionally an Un Sure Regard entry and FIPRESCI Prize and the Prix de l’Avenir winner, however broadens his scope to embody gender in addition to class points, in addition to concerning the Covid-19 pandemic. There’s no motive why Homebound can’t comply with a path much like All We Think about As Mild, final 12 months’s Cannes breakout about modern India. Artwork home distributors and streaming retailers ought to present curiosity after a probable pageant run.

Chandan Kumar (Vishal Jethwa, Mardaani 2) and Mohammed Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter, A Appropriate Boy) are childhood pals who resolve the highway to respectability and equality runs by means of the civil service. Rising up in a small village in northern India, they’re satisfied that incomes one of many 3,500 spots from amongst 2.5 million candidates, and placing on the uniform of the nationwide police, will finish their lives of poverty and discrimination. Regardless of their non secular and social variations, the pair are shut pals, with sensible Chandan retaining the extra fiery Mohammed out of hassle.

Their friendship is examined when Chandan passes the check, however Mohammed doesn’t. Chandan anxiously waits for his obligation task whereas Mohammed takes a job with an electronics supplier and does his finest to earn the respect of his Hindu co-workers. By the point Covid-19 hits in 2020 and India goes into lockdown, the 2 younger males have drifted aside and are available again collectively once more.

Ghaywan’s factors about Hindu nationalism and lingering class bias are on the nostril, however he by no means belabours them, and he will get loads of assist from a stellar solid led by Khatter and Jethwa. Chandan’s informal try and keep away from revealing his surname to a scholar they meet on the practice station, Sudha Bharti (Janhvi Kapoor) – and due to this fact indicating his caste – is properly underplayed. Khatter buries Mohammed’s fury at being requested to provide residency papers and a clear police report for a gross sales job, however the battle between yelling and remaining silent is palpable.

Ghaywan throws a large web and lets Chandan’s sister Vaishali (Harshika Parmar) stand in for all of the SC women and girls who will merely by no means get the chance to go to varsity – and Sudha does the identical for those that do and need to work twice as laborious. By way of all of it Ghaywan by no means loses sight of the primary story, which is Chandan and Mohammed’s lifelong bond.

Whatever the stresses, Ghaywan finds time for moments of grace and pleasure for the buddies, from easy pleasures like tucking into Mohammed’s mom’s biryani or wrestling over Chandan’s mom’s pickles with fellow textile staff in Surat. Khatter and Jethwa have a pure, plausible dynamic that lends the story a lot of its energy and underpins it with a coming-of-age angle.

Complemented by an unobtrusive however evocative rating by Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor that mixes Indian rhythms with conventional orchestral swells, Pratik Shah’s visuals give the nation’s usually teeming streets and the closing act’s mass homeward migration an eerie, heart-breaking magnificence.