Hichki movie review: Rani Mukerjee has no defect in her performance

Rani Mukerjee is acting out the role of a school teacher in the film who has Tourette Syndrome, which is essentially a speech defect. Hichki is based upon a Hollywood film ‘Front of the class’ that was released in 2008 which in turn is based on a book titled ‘Front of the class: How Tourette Syndrome Made me the Teacher I Never Had’ by Brad Cohen. Schooling system in India is a little different from the western part of the world and film has been successful in adapting to the nuances.

It is a fairly simple story of a character who just wants to teach kids to shape the future of this country by emotionally connecting to them. She wants to be a mentor to them in life instead of merely walking into a life and start giving lectures only to leave as early as possible. She would given share her personal phone number in the class so that kids may contact her anytime they have to regarding difficulties which can be other than the syllabus. Her extreme passion for teaching is also a constant source of disappointment in her life as the speech defect does not let her speak in a fluent way. Schools don not want to hire her because there are always people who do not have the very defect that they need to use in the methodology of required work.

She figures out an elite school that hires her to teach a class of unprivileged kids which are the pro-bono work of that organization. These children come from slums and never really had a good formal education which would teach them mannerisms and etiquette. Directed by Sidharth Malhotra, it is her journey with the kids to fit in the structure of society despite of their lacking capabilities. Overall it is a decent one time watch with good intentions.