Movie World
Bollywood movies of 2018 that proved to be of mediocre quality – Part 3
October
Movie October had Varun Dhawan and
newbie Banita Sandhu starring in it. The film appeared pretentious. It made for
a laborious watch. Directed by Indian National Award-winning Shoojit Sircar,
‘October’ is a tale about Dan, in the throes of a grim quarter-life crisis.
October is a 2018 Indian
Hindi-language slice of life romantic drama film directed by Shoojit Sircar,
and produced by Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar under their Rising Sun Films
banner. The film stars Varun Dhawan, Banita Sandhu, and Gitanjali Rao. Both
Sandhu and Rao debuted as actors with this film. Written by Juhi Chaturvedi and
shot by Avik Mukhopadhyay, the film follows the life of a hotel-management
intern who takes care of his comatose fellow intern in an unconditional and
unconventional manner. October earned six nominations at the 64th Filmfare
Awards including Best Supporting Actress for Rao and Best Actor Critics for
Dhawan.
Initially scheduled to release on 1
June 2018, the film was released on 13 April 2018, grossing over ₹54.74 crore
worldwide. Upon its release, the filmmakers were accused of plagiarising Aarti
- The Unknown Love Story, a Marathi film directed by Sarika Mene. Screenwriters
Association reviewed the case and found some similarities between the two
films. However, it cleared October of plagiarism charges as the real-life
events that likely inspired both the films were not protected by copyright
laws.
Marketing and release
Varun Dhawan and Rising Sun Films
first teased October in a 10-second clip released on 23 January 2018 to their
official Twitter and YouTube handles, respectively. On 14 February 2018
first-look teaser trailer of the film was released. It was followed by the
release of first-look (also theatrical release) poster and official trailer on
9 March 2018 and 12 March 2018. In an interview, Shoojit Sircar said that
writers do not get much credit like they do in the West. He said, “It is
important to acknowledge all the technicians in the film, especially the one
who conceives it, the writers.” He feels that a writer's contribution is as
important as any actor's or director's. This was the reason which made him
“deliberately” give Juhi Chaturvedi's credit in the trailer and “made sure the
industry notices”. He further added that the Hindi film industry doesn't think
writing to be important. For them, it's more “the actor, then the director, how
you shoot the film and how expensive.”
Initially, the film was scheduled
to release on 1 June 2018. But in October 2017, Dhawan, in one of his tweets,
revealed that the release date has been preponed. The film was released on 13
April 2018 across 2308 screens worldwide.
Reception
Box office
As of 10 May 2018, October has
grossed over ₹49.92 crore (US$6.9 million) in India, and as of 6 May 2018,
₹3.45 crore (US$480,000) in North America (USA and Canada), ₹0.71 crore
(US$99,000) in United Kingdom, ₹0.32 crore (US$45,000) in Australia and ₹0.11 crore
(US$15,000) in New Zealand making a worldwide total of ₹54.51 crore (US$7.6
million), which is more than twice the production budget of the film.[8] It had
a domestic opening of ₹4.25 crore (US$590,000), which grew to ₹6.25 crore
(US$870,000) and ₹7.25 crore (US$1.0 million) on the second and third days. The
collection decreased to ₹1.25 crore (US$170,000) by the eighth day with spikes
of ₹2.25 crore (US$310,000) and ₹2.75 crore (US$380,000) on the ninth and tenth
days. By the fifteenth day, the collection was ₹0.36 crore (US$50,000), The
film grossed ₹0.63 crore (US$88,000) and ₹0.72 crore (US$100,000) on the
sixteenth and seventeenth days, then dropped to ₹0.01 crore (US$1,400) by the
42nd day of its domestic run.
Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten
Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86%, based on 7 reviews, with an
average rating of 7.2/10.
Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the
movie 4 out of 5 stars, calling it an exquisite drama. Rajeev Masand of News18
said that, "October is a thoughtful, meditative film about love, grief,
mortality, and the making of a man". He praised the performances of the
lead actors and gave the film a rating of 3.5 out of 5. Rohit Vats of Hindustan
Times gave the film a rating of 4.5 out of 5 and appreciated the performances
of all actors specially Varun Dhawan about whom he said that, "It’s a
terrific performance, his best for sure". The critic said that,
"October, a month in autumn, is more than just a symbol in Shoojit
Sircar’s new film. It covers a lifetime. It brings haunting images, evokes
tears, makes you anxious and then leaves you blank. You’re numb while waiting
to return to reality."Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film a
rating of 2.5 out of 5 and said that, "I liked much of October, but didn’t
fall in love with it." but she did praise the performances of all actors
and the writer of the movie, Juhi Chaturvedi. Madhureeta Mukherjee of The Times
of India gave the film a rating of 4.5 out of 5 and said that, "It’s not a
story crafted with heavy doses of dialogues, romantic ballads or bombastic
tropes common to the genre. The beauty lies in the simplicity of it all."
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