What’s the big deal with “Wake up Sid”?

I finally saw “Wake up Sid” after days of encouragement from my little sister and a few friends who kept telling me that it’s the best movie they’ve seen in a long-long time. I was used to hearing words such as awesome, fantastic, amazing, etc. in the same breath as “Wake up Sid”. Now after seeing the movie, I wonder why. Why the euphoria? What is so special about “Wake up Sid”? Why is everyone going so crazy about it? What’s the big deal with “Wake up Sid”?

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the movie as such. It’s a sweet relaxing movie. Those feel-good types that crop up once in a while. It’s not boring rather a good time pass and one does not exactly feel that the money was wasted or could have been better spent elsewhere. It’s also a very simple film, very relatable and fresh. With the upper middle class urban feel, it also confirms to the sensibilities of the multiplex audiences who have now replaced the masses as the audience that make or break a movie.

But, the very essential question, if I may ask, is “What is the story of the movie?” I mean, the film at best has a plot, a premise; but definitely not a story. And, if I must, I would give credit to, Ayan Mukherjee, the young director to have a 2.30 hours movie revolve on a small plot and still not make it boring. How much time can you actually take to tell about a boy who “comes of age”. It’s a movie basically narrating the story of a poor chap who tasted setback/failure and slowly starts taking up responsibilities. It’s not a novel concept. It’s a trend which started with the still fresh and enjoyable “Dil Chahta Hai” about ten years ago.

In fact, Farhan Akhtar, the talented debutant director of “Dil Chahta Hai” himself made a movie on the same plot as “Wake up Sid” in his second offering, “Lakshya”. “Lakshya” too was a movie about an unfocused boy belonging to a well-to-do family, who had no aim, no objective in life. Then, circumstances teach him important lessons in life and he not only finds ambition but successfully fulfils the same as well. “Lakshya” was technically and literarily stronger than “Wake up Sid”. It was in all aspects a better made film and had a definitive story instead of just a premise. (I am not comparing the performances as they were equally good in both.) Yet, “Lakshya” flopped and “Wake up Sid” is a craze among the young and the not-so-young generation.

The reason is simple. “Lakshya” had a very strong tagline: “It took him 24 years and 18000 feet to find himself”. 18000 feet refer to the altitude at which the Kargil War was fought. The movie used the Kargil War and the tough and disciplined army life as the background, where the aimless young man finds his calling. However, “Wake up Sid” does not resort to something as drastic as that. Normal day-to-day problems and financial challenges force the young man here to “grow up”. Hence, the latter is all the more relatable to the college goers or the young just out of college generation in their late twenties. Not everyone nowadays is extremely patriotic, but instead patriotism nowadays is mingled in personal goals of ambition of self to do well and along the way let the country progress because its youth is doing well. “Sid” unlike “Karan” in that sense did not feel for his country when he starts taking up responsibilities. His single-point aim despite his confused mind, once the fog cleared from his grey cells, was to do well and show his parents and friends what he is worth. Hence, he was just a normal guy like you and me and thus much more relatable to than “Karan”. And so, “Wake up Sid” did what “Lakshya” couldn’t: do well at the box-office.

I still personally find “Lakshya” a better movie than “Wake up Sid” and would watch it over and over again even if “Wake up Sid” for me is a damn good one-time watch. I only wish people could have understood the soul of the movie instead of focussing on the garb. Then maybe, Farhan, the excellent filmmaker and storyteller that he is, would have gotten his due.