Homebound (2025): A Raw Portrait of Friendship Amid Caste, Faith, and Lockdown Despair

Hello readers..This blog is part of Homebound movie review task given by Dilip Baradsir.Activity sheet

Wikipedia of Homebound

PART I: PRE-SCREENING CONTEXT & ADAPTATION

Homebound (2025), directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, is adapted from Basharat Peer’s 2020 New York Times essay A Friendship, a Pandemic and a Death Beside the Highway. The original essay narrates the true story of Amrit Kumar and Mohammad Saiyub, migrant textile workers stranded during the COVID-19 lockdown.

In the film, these real figures are fictionalized as Chandan and Shoaib, and their profession is significantly changed—from migrant workers to aspiring police constables. This creative shift is crucial. While the essay focuses on economic vulnerability and state abandonment, the film reframes the narrative around ambition, dignity, and faith in institutions. By making the protagonists candidates for a government job, the film highlights their desire not merely to survive, but to be recognized as respectable citizens.

This change deepens the tragedy: even those who aspire to serve the state are ultimately discarded by it. Thus, the adaptation moves from reportage to a broader critique of institutional failure and systemic inequality.

2. Production Context

Martin Scorsese’s role as Executive Producer is significant in shaping the film’s realist aesthetic. Reports suggest that Scorsese closely mentored Ghaywan, viewing multiple cuts of the film. His influence is visible in the restrained storytelling, avoidance of melodrama, and commitment to observational realism.

This realist tone helped Homebound gain international acclaim at festivals like Cannes and TIFF, where such aesthetics are appreciated. However, the same restraint distanced domestic audiences accustomed to spectacle-driven Hindi cinema. Thus, the production context also explains the film’s critical success abroad and commercial failure in India, revealing differing cinematic expectations.

PART II: NARRATIVE STRUCTURE & THEMATIC STUDY

3. The Politics of the “Uniform”

In the first half, the film focuses on Chandan and Shoaib preparing for the police entrance examination. The police uniform symbolizes authority, dignity, and upward mobility. For marginalized individuals, it promises visibility and protection in a society that otherwise marginalizes them based on caste and religion.

However, the film systematically dismantles this hope. With 2.5 million applicants competing for only 3,500 seats, meritocracy is revealed as a myth. The belief that hard work guarantees success is shown to be fragile, especially for those starting from structurally disadvantaged positions. The uniform thus becomes a cruel symbol—something eternally out of reach.

4. Intersectionality: Caste and Religion

Rather than depicting overt violence, Homebound exposes discrimination through micro-aggressions.

Case A: Caste

Chandan chooses to apply under the General category instead of Reserved, despite being Dalit. This decision reflects the deep shame and stigma attached to caste identity. The film shows that reservation, meant as protection, is socially perceived as inferiority, forcing individuals to erase their own identity to seek acceptance.

Case B: Religion

In a subtle yet powerful scene, a co-worker refuses to accept a water bottle from Shoaib. The act is quiet, almost casual, yet deeply violent. It exemplifies religious othering in everyday spaces, showing how discrimination operates through silence rather than confrontation.

5. The Pandemic as a Narrative Device

The introduction of the COVID-19 lockdown marks a tonal shift in the film. Some critics argue this feels abrupt, but the film suggests otherwise. The pandemic does not create a new crisis—it reveals an existing one.

The introduction of the COVID-19 lockdown marks a tonal shift in the film. Some critics argue this feels abrupt, but the film suggests otherwise. The pandemic does not create a new crisis—it reveals an existing one.

The lockdown transforms the story from a drama of ambition into a survival narrative. The lack of transport, food, and institutional support exposes the state’s indifference toward its most vulnerable citizens. The pandemic functions as a magnifying glass, intensifying the “slow violence” already embedded in social structures.

PART III: CHARACTER & PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

6. Somatic Performance: Vishal Jethwa (Chandan)

Vishal Jethwa’s performance is rooted in physicality. His body language visibly changes in the presence of authority figures—shoulders droop, gaze lowers, speech hesitates. In the scene where he is asked his full name, his discomfort reflects the historical trauma associated with caste identity.

This “shrinking” of the body becomes a visual metaphor for internalized oppression, showing how caste discrimination operates psychologically, not just socially.

7. The “Othered” Citizen: Ishaan Khatter (Shoaib)

Shoaib embodies restrained anger and emotional exhaustion. His decision to reject a job opportunity in Dubai in favor of a government position in India reflects his desire for belonging and recognition in his own country.

However, the film shows that this hope is constantly undermined. Shoaib is required to repeatedly prove his loyalty, revealing the conditional nature of citizenship for religious minorities. His arc reflects the painful irony of seeking “home” in a nation that continually treats him as an outsider.

8. Gendered Perspectives: Janhvi Kapoor (Sudha Bharti)

Sudha Bharti’s character has generated mixed responses. Some critics view her as underdeveloped and merely a narrative device. However, she also represents educational privilege and relative social mobility.

Her presence highlights gendered contrasts: while she navigates systemic barriers through education, the male protagonists remain trapped by caste and religious identity. Thus, Sudha functions as a counterpoint, illustrating how access to education can mediate—but not erase—social inequality.

PART IV: CINEMATIC LANGUAGE

9. Visual Aesthetics

Cinematographer Pratik Shah employs a muted palette of greys, browns, and dust tones. During migration sequences, the camera focuses on feet, sweat, cracked roads, and exhausted bodies. These choices create an “aesthetic of exhaustion,” refusing to romanticize suffering.

The framing often keeps characters confined within the frame, visually reinforcing entrapment and helplessness.

10. Soundscape

The background score by Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor is minimalistic. Silence is frequently used instead of emotional music, allowing ambient sounds—breathing, footsteps, wind—to dominate.

This restraint distances the film from Bollywood melodrama and forces viewers to confront tragedy without emotional cues, making the suffering feel raw and unfiltered.

PART V: CRITICAL DISCOURSE & ETHICS

11. The Censorship Debate

The CBFC ordered multiple cuts, including muting words and removing dialogues referencing everyday food items. These cuts reveal the state’s discomfort with narratives that expose caste and religious tensions.

Actor Ishaan Khatter criticized this as a double standard, pointing out that commercial films escape scrutiny while social films are heavily censored.

12. Ethics of “True Story” Adaptations

The film faced allegations of plagiarism and criticism for excluding the real victim’s family from the filmmaking process. These controversies raise ethical questions:

Do filmmakers have a responsibility beyond “raising awareness”?

Is it ethical to profit from marginalized suffering without proper consent or compensation?

Homebound thus becomes part of a larger debate on representation versus exploitation.

13. Commercial Viability vs Art

Despite international acclaim and Oscar shortlisting, Homebound failed at the domestic box office. Producer Karan Johar’s statement about avoiding such “unprofitable” films highlights the tension between artistic integrity and market logic.

This gap exposes the challenges faced by serious social cinema in post-pandemic India.

PART VI: FINAL SYNTHESIS

Homebound ultimately argues that dignity is a basic right systematically denied, not a reward earned through obedience or hard work. The “journey home” operates on two levels—first as aspiration through state institutions, and later as forced physical migration.

The tragedy lies in the realization that neither the nation nor the village offers belonging. The protagonists’ failure is not personal but structural. The film ends not with redemption, but with a powerful indictment of a society where equality exists only in shared abandonment.

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