‘Serious Men’ is a movie based on Manu Joseph’s novel of the same name. Directed by Sudhir Mishra, the movie is satirical and is about a Dalit man who has a great rage against the society for not treating their community well.
So the story revolves around Ayan Mani, a Tamil Dalit who lives in Mumbai slums with his family is desperate to do anything in order to lead a decent life, even if it comes to compromising his morals. But after facing discrimination his whole life, morals and ethics don’t make sense to him anymore. So he uses his child as a weapon to lead a decent life and to take revenge from society.
Ayyan Mani(Nawaz) is a personal assistant to a Brahmin Astronomer called Acharya. The more Ayyan tries to impress him, the more his boss insults and bullies him. So as an assistant, Ayyan swallows his ego and self-respect and continues to work with him. But on the other hand, he is planning to use his genius school-going kid Addi as a weapon who astonishes everybody in his school with his intelligence and is also referred to as Kalam. Ayyan soon becomes successful in using his son’s intelligence to gain publicity and plays a victim card which takes him far in life. Soon a political party approaches him to use his son as the face of their party to increase their Dalit base. But in meantime, a secret which he was harboring for so long, starts to dismantle his plan. Ayyan tries his best to contain the damage caused by it but eventually fails.
The movie is a mix between caste and class discrimination which is often confusing. But while watching the movie, you can totally empathize with the pain of a Dalit man facing discrimination in his daily life. The movie raises questions about whether a Dalit who takes a wrong path is justified because he faces discrimination his whole life or he should stick to the moral values and suffer injustice silently without taking any action. Sudhir Mishra did a great job as this movie makes you think about the discrimination faced by Dalit people even today. It also makes you wonder that alone reservations cannot compensate for the injustice they face in their daily lives.
Coming to the performances, Nawazuddin Siddique as usual aces his role with his sheer talent. Nassar who plays the role of a grumpy Astronomer boss is quite promising. Aakshath Das who plays the role of Addi strikes the chord with his fine performance in the movie. The whole star cast did full justice to their role so no complaints regarding the performances in the movie.
Overall, the movie is quite intriguing and one must watch the movie not only to understand the pain of the lower caste community but also to change the prejudiced and inhuman behavior against them.
So go and watch this amazing movie on Netflix.
