'Serious Men' movie review: Nawazuddin Siddiqui outdoes himself in this sharp film

Film: Serious Men

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Aakshath Das, M. Nasser, Indira Tiwari, Shweta Basu Prasad, Sanjay Narvekar, Vidhi Chitalia

Director: Sudhir Mishra

Where to watch: Netflix

Critic's rating: 3/5

'Serious men' story:

Helmed by Sudhir Mishra, 'Serious Men'  is based on Manu Joseph's 2010 novel of the same name. 

Centered around Ayyan Mani, a Dalit Tamil migrant in Mumbai, who works as personal assistant to Arvind Acharya, one of the 'serious men' in the film, Mani is hell-bent on getting everything that he didn't have as a child, for his only son Adi -- a life full of privilege, better opportunities and above all, respect from people from all walks of life.

While 'moron, imbecile, knobhead' are just some of the terms hurled at Mani by his egoistic, Brahmin boss Acharya, who fails to be pleased even after repeated attempts by Siddiqui, the latter, along with his 'so-called neighbour' who works at the same place, comes up with the term 'serious men' for all these upper class, educated, privileged people who educate themselves enough to conduct research and studies on 'chu***stic' subjects.

Early on, the audiences are apprised of the fact that rather than pity his marginalisation as a Dalit Tamil migrant, Mani finds every opportunity to use it as a weapon to very smartly and slyly turning the tables in his favour or shame someone who dares to belittle him. 

Mani, portrayed and interpreted by Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a meticulous and refined manner, will leave an impression on you as a father whose only wish is to give a better life to his son and he could go to any extent to accomplish it. 
 
Determined not to let his son wither away his life in drudgery, Ayyan aka Nawazuddin dishes out a plan to bail out of the hell-hole he is in. And from here, begins Mani's journey of his own social upliftment by convincing the people that his 10-year-old son is, in fact, a genius.

A Dalit man with a near-decent job, Mani lives in a two-by-two chawl that feels like a cage to him as he is metaphorically trapped by the Mumbai skyscrapers and mentally imprisoned due to the oppression that is forefathers and father faced being a Dalit.  

As a personal assistant to an important figure, astrophysicist Acharya, director of National Institute of Fundamental Research in the maximum city, Mani is quick to understand the worth of education along with a simple idea -- “Public jisko samajhti nahin hain, usko salaam thokti hain; respect karti hain.”

While instances where Mani is reminded of the subjugation that his ancestors had to bear for being Dalits and manual scavengers, help him channelise his inner frustration and motivates him to put all his mind to come up with completely dishonest ways to get rid of a life he never wanted, is ironically almost in sync with the scams run by these ‘serious men’.

Consequently, Mani chalks out a desperate scheme to escape his life of never-ending misery which is cramped in a one-room chawl with his wife Oja and son Adi and is devoid of all the pleasures that come easy to the upper-caste, privileged. 

While this Sudhir Mishra film deals with the issue of caste-based discrimination without rubbing anyone the wrong way, it sure has a subtle reference to 'pleas' to embrace Christianity for better opportunities, or instances where the caste card comes handy when a politician wants the chawl residents to vacate the place so that an ambitious project of his can see the light of the day. 

'Serious men' showcases the sad reality of the politics and wild games individuals from different walks of life, belonging to different socio-economic strata play, in order to safeguard their own selfish interests. 

Essentially a father-son drama conceptualised in the backdrop of India's caste dynamics, in Adi, Siddiqui finds his route to escape the lowly life he had been living. Hailed as a child prodigy, Adi is Mani's only hope who will lift his family out of poverty. 

However, while everything seems on course till the time Adi astonishes his teachers and principal with his exemplary math-solving skills, impresses them with his discussions about photosynthesis, alien microbes among other things, politicians are seeking the opportunity to collaborate with a genius mind like Adi to take advantage of his popularity as the political party grows their Dalit base and the media is going berserk covering the genius, till a time when Mani and Adi's secret that they have harboured all these years, is revealed one day. 

Once the secret is out, Mani makes a desperate attempt to contain the damage but in the end, has to take the help of one of the 'serious men', his boss Acharya, whose research and findings on ‘alien microbes’ is nothing but exaggerations, for a clean 'exit plan'. 

Towards the end of the film, a photograph of a mother and child displayed in a gallery is revealed where Mani meets Acharya to give a letter that gives the latter his job back at the research institute (one which Mani only sabotages to take his revenge from his upper class, egoistic boss). The photograph, as Mani reveals, is of him and his mother, who died when he was young. 

A prize-winning picture that, Mani's recalls how his father had forced his mother to lose weight for the shoot when a noted photographer had visited their village for an international assignment. Mani while recalling how after his mother died, the photographer won a handsome amount for the photograph and as a gesture sent a '2 percent of 2 lakhs' to his father. 

While recalling the incident, Mani speaks of how his father sold his mother and him in order to get some money so that they could lead a life that didn't require them to be humiliated at every given point. 

As audiences, through this scene, the makers mean to make us realise that in pushing Adi, Mani is becoming his father. And while it might actually be so, somehow the traits of Mani that we see throughout the film up until this point, somewhere give the impression that it is more in the character to cook up a story to tap into the upper-class guilt in order to get his work done.  

While there's no denying that Siddiqui outdoes himself each time he faces the camera and this film too, he almost single-handedly carries on his shoulders, the few things that don't seem to click all too well in the film are the forgettable dialogues and the predictability in the storyline that sort of takes away the fun of watching a Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer. 

And while in the end, everything is in place with the family reunited, living a normal life, away from all the grand scams, in a far off place and Mani is seen spending quality time with his 'average' son Adi, the film ends with Nawazuddin's character giving an impression that he has been punished for all that he has done, to live the rest of his life like a fool.

One of the best performances by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the makers have managed to deal with the complex issue of caste, sensitively and without any controversies surrounding the film. 

'Serious Men' that streams Netflix on October 2, addresses the caste system prevalent in our society subtly yet evidently and is able to capture the inner frustration of a man who knows he is a 'small molecule in the world', all too well.

One word for this Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer -- sharp.