Superboys of Malegaon Review: Adarsh Gourav and Shashank Arora beguile and devastate in warm, disarming drama

Superboys of Malegaon is powered by pure, misty-eyed emotion. Reema Kagti’s film is about the thrill we seek in cinema, the shelter it offers, the gleeful escape it pulls off from life’s hopeless, defeating rhythms - and, of course, the sheer act of dreaming. This endearing drama takes us to the titular small town near Nasik in Maharashtra, where a ragtag bunch led by Nasir (Adarsh Gourav) as the director embark on making spoofs of beloved films in their own dialect, their hometown.  

The exquisitely gliding opening establishes, through Nasir and his friends, the electric pull of the movies. It’s like all of a day’s work leads up to that exultant, giddy experience where one gets to lose themselves utterly inside a rundown, small theatre; bliss whisks one away. Occasionally, Kagti presses motifs and metaphors too bluntly. The gestures are clear, emphatic. When so much of filmmaking is collaborative, why does just the director get lavished with praise? Where does the writer, the originator of the story itself, stand? Does he/she have any control whatsoever in wresting back, while their own work is mangled beyond recognition? Finally, what kind of stories are allowed to play out on the screen?

Superboys of Malegaon draws high-beam charm in its buildup, spanning the late nineties. The passion with which Nasir and his friends cobble together shoestring resources, mount their labor of love is as infectious as rousing. Adarsh Gourav lands every delicate note. Notice the sudden sparkle in his eyes, his brain zipping into ideas when Nasir is first casually introduced to editing. A wedding videographer, Nasir runs his father’s video parlour which runs on his playful mixtapes of Buster Keaton, Bruce Lee and popular Bollywood. These ‘4-in-1’ films rake in ample audiences. However, a crackdown on piracy compels Nasir to come up with making a Malegaon movie, which would evade any trouble. He ropes in his friends, who turn from skepticism to excitement. Farogh (Vineet Kumar Singh), an aspiring, idealistic writer, does the script, the others, Shafique (Shashank Arora), Akram (Anuj Singh Duhan), Aleem (Pallav Singh) act and assist in a spoof of Sholay.

Nasir’s hogging credits, sidelining his own friends who have been key to his raging success start creating ugly ripples between him and them. He’s too absorbed in just his ideas. Soon, the lure of commerce, chasing lucrative offers drive him far from the very seed of his uniquely DIY films. Neither does he keep his promises to Farogh. Ultimately his film proposals are what get prime attention. Fault lines begin to show up during the shoot itself. Farogh’s script is too tinkered with, Nasir wooing financiers and planting additional, extraneous scenes. He keeps insisting on Nasir not to compromise so much. “If money is what you need, I’d rather steal for you,” he stresses.

Once the film explodes on its arrival, sending cash registers ringing and the posters expanding, it’s only Nasir who gets to taste success. He buys a swanky bike, while the writer’s basic fees remain unconsidered, postponed. Close friendships, circles of trust fray; Nasir’s group breaks up. Each swivels to their own path, turning away from him. “You’re fulfilling just your dreams, it’s just you who’s getting respect”, they point out, embittered, betrayed. Only Shafique sticks by his side, unerring in loyalty despite being frequently slighted. He secretly covets to be an actor. But he’s not someone who would project his wish. As wonderfully enabling he is of those around him, acing being an AD to Nasir, Shafique retreats too quickly when it comes to his desires.

However, Varun Grover’s screenplay hits its weakest strides when it follows Farogh trying to make it in Bombay. His scripts with their politically realist cadence don’t catch the fancy of producers, who just suggest he write something commercial instead. This track feels largely generic; thankfully, the film diverts swiftly to focalising Shafique, the fresh lease of life in making movies his circumstance kick-starts. Kagti’s warmth and affection for her characters helps the film tide past the intermittent lectern-style emphasis in its dialogues.

Superboys of Malegaon is most stirring in its espousal, firm avowal of localised idioms and textures, the community spirit, friendship that render dreams tangible, real, achievable. Grover’s screenplay gets the artist’s vanity, ego clashes within groups, gripes and falling-out and reconciliation, with ease and lightness. As is precisely etched definitive moments like the crushing anxiety the group faces during the premiere: Nasir is initially inside the theatre, nervously scanning the audience for approval, to respond it the way he desires until he can no longer take it in and leaves. Grover also makes the point for hand-crafted eccentricities in any sort of art wielding greater allure than assembly-line produce. Tied to this, as Farogh eloquently underlines, are working-class stories and dreams reaching their share of glory in at least Malegaon’s cinema, even as larger industries pursue lofty, exaggerated scale and spectacle. Singh has some of the film’s most rallying lines, even if the writing hammers key points after a while. Greed leads Nasir astray and it almost seems he had to experience the eventual personal tragedy to reconnect with the early stainless, yet ruffled cinema-madness. These scrappy DIY films affirm their existence, give it currency.

But there are soft spots here in Kagti’s otherwise spirited storytelling. Swapnil S. Sonawane’s cinematography and Anand Subaya’s editing beguile and transport vividly across the periods, a trajectory shifting from celluloid to digital, but both have to visibly and continually contend with a gaze that scrubs out the creases in the lives we see. It seems to have been a conscious decision to foreground largely the Muslim-majority population of Malegaon, but this unwavering focus elides the town’s communal cauldron. The film’s political nuance stays limited to simple-minded trajectories of dreaming and transcending one’s social station via projection. Even while Superboys of Malegaon fleetingly zooms out from Nasir to reckon with individual realities of his friends, it doesn’t push deeper. Shafique’s mill work registers as just an afterthought. The fixation with Nasir also doesn’t let the town fully make itself felt as a complex, thriving setting. Luckily, the film has such textured work from its rich galley of actors these characters, their stinging aches, buried emotions do come through. It’s an absolute triumph of casting, every face comes alive keenly, euphorically. Standouts include Anuj Duhan, Pallav Singh and the two fine actresses, Muskkaan Jaferi as Nasir’s anchoring wife and Manjiri Pupala as the troupe’s sole heroine, sneaking away from her abusive husband. Finally, the trio of Gourav, Singh and Arora are unforgettable, though Arora almost runs away with the film in his expansive, soulful deepening of a character that may seem not very substantive on first notice. The actor lends elaborate dimension, a lifetime of yearning to the character even before Shafique gets to be the hero he desires.

Produced by Zoya Akhtar, Superboys of Malegaon locates art within a continuum, gently calming constant anxieties to be original. There’s great reassurance Kagti offers. As long as your story is authentic and rooted, no one can deny its power, its import. It’d be tough to rival this film’s transcendent climax, melding life’s tragedy, art’s immortalising and Sachin-Jigar’s gloriously peaking music. It’s an immeasurably moving, profoundly cathartic experience.