In 2012, seven young actors made their debut in Karan Johar's high school comedy Student of the Year, which would go on to become one of the Bollywood hits of the year, despite the absence of a star cast. Since then, the three lead actors, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan have become audience darlings and are big names in the Indian film industry. It is the film that made them famous that I want to talk about today. On the menu: a student competition in an elite private school and the eventful journey of a group of friends.
The Story
Alumni of the elite private St Teresa's High School are called to the bedside of the gravely ill headmaster (Rishi Kapoor). They recall their final year at the school that had left a deep impression on them ten years earlier.
Flashback. Life is simple at St Teresa's. The daughters and sons of the rich hog all the popularity and the children who got into the school on scholarship serve as their foils. Rohan Nanda (Varun Dahwan), the son of a powerful businessman with whom he has a difficult relationship, is the school playboy, which displeases Shanaya Singhania (Alia Bhatt), his long-time girlfriend, a spoiled child from a very wealthy family.
The well-ordered little world of the school is turned upside down by the arrival of Abhimanyu Singh (Sidharth Malhotra). Handsome, athletic, ambitious but an orphan, Abhi does not have Rohan's fortune and yet, he immediately attracts attention.
Initially jealous of this rival whom he wants to humiliate, the party-loving Rohan ends up recognizing a certain class in him. Their football talents bring them closer together and their enmity turns into a deep friendship.
Yet, Abhi can't help but be attracted to Shanaya, who he sees suffering from Rohan's frivolity. At the same time, a big competition between students is coming up: the Student of the Year trophy can only be won by one student and Abhi needs it to pay for his studies while Rohan would like to take advantage of it to dazzle his father.
Other friends of theirs will also participate. As we know, ten years later, many bonds have not survived these affairs. Will their reunion at the hospital offer the students of St Teresa's a chance to repair what was broken that year?
My Opinion
Student of the Year left me with the same contrasting feeling of enthusiasm and melancholic bitterness. Despite the good humor in the middle, the ending didn't really satisfy me even if the last image has something touching, and I was generally disappointed by the unfolding of certain plots and certain lines.
Cliché in a rather nice way, the film has three strong points: the story of friendship between Abhi and Rohan, the acting of Alia Bhatt and Varun Dahwan and the abundance of trendy and cheerful songs. As you may have read elsewhere on my blog, I hate love triangles and this one was no exception to the rule.
If Alia Bhatt's freshness and very second degree side managed to make the pill go down better, I found it a shame that this plot allowed to spoil what I preferred in the film and that Bollywood does so well: the story of friendship.
In short, this is the whole problem of the film that the characters themselves identify in the scenes ten years later: the competition for the trophy and the rivalry around Shanaya damaged beautiful relationships and it's really a shame that the screenplay bet on it in length.
Personally, I am not a fan of Abhi's character, who should have been the one of the two boys I was going to prefer as he was initially presented. But Bollywood is always more complex than it seems, and things quickly changed.
Sidharth Malhotra's somewhat stereotypical former model physique did not help much to distinguish him from other young leading men, but above all, his very individualistic character is too attached to his personal ambition, almost to the point of arrogance. At the end, one of the revelations that could have elevated his character unfortunately remained in the same vein.
He is not at all the kind of hero that I like, especially since he is the one who introduces the love triangle and that opposite him, the character of Rohan, who we first perceive as arrogant and selfish, actually turns out to be an attentive, sincere friend, disinterested in competition, served by an enthusiastic actor.
It is their relationship that draws sympathy to Abhi and I really liked the whole part of the film where they adore each other and understand each other intimately. The evolution of their rivalry into deep complicity is a very nice plot and Abhi's character gains emotion from it.
So the love aspect was completely off-putting to me. I didn't really see any romantic chemistry between Abhi and Shanaya, probably because Sidharth Malhotra's acting is too bland. On the other hand, they make a cute pair of friends and the Shanaya/Rohan duo has something much more fun (even if Rohan treats her badly sometimes.
In fact everything would have worked well if they had simply been friends). I end up wondering WHY the writers persist with love triangles that bring twists and easy drama and threaten other aspects of the story! But as I said, Alia Bhatt turns out to be a sparkling and funny actress who plays on clichés while making her character real and endearing. Served by an inspired stylist, she manages to make this part of the film enjoyable.
Finally, in terms of the storyline, I had a hard time believing the ten years later aspect. The characters feel things as raw as if they had parted ways the day before, which seems quite improbable to me, and at the same time, the distance between them seems to have grown so much that it seems very complicated to reconnect with old ties like before.
It is precisely this alternation of flashbacks between scenes where the high school students are very close and scenes where their adult versions have absolutely not been in contact for years that tinged the enthusiasm of the film with melancholy in my eyes.
I think that the plot would have worked better if everything had been settled at the latest a few months after the end of high school. It is a good point, however, that the many supporting roles are involved in this outcome: they managed to make themselves likeable throughout the film.
As for the songs, however, if you like modern and young Bollywood music, and you are not too fussy when faced with actors who are still beginners in dancing, you will appreciate the profusion offered by SOTY, sometimes with a lot of humor like "Radha" which evokes a figure of the Hindu religion revisited by the trendy Shanaya.
In short, a cliché but not only film as we like it which leaves a funny final impression not necessarily very satisfying, with promising actors and a plot around friendship as Bollywood knows how to do!
A film starring: Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra, Varun Dahwan, Rishi Kapoor. Directed by: Karan Johar.
