The surprise packages of 2017

Films like ‘Lipstick Under My Burka’ and ‘Mom’ have been big sleeper surprises and the fad seems to continue and paving way to small budgeted films with good content

A lot of stuff has been written on how, and mostly rightly, 2017 has been big on colossal overhyped duds. Cinema from celebrated makers has been very disappointing in this year. ‘Raees’, ‘Rangoon’, ‘OK Jaanu’, ‘Tubelight’, ‘Noor’, ‘Indu Sarkar’, ‘Sarkar 3’, ‘Begum Jaan’ are a few names that Bollywood belted out this year. All these came with huge expectations and even more gigantic hype and each of them is such a magnificent bore fest that you might find it very difficult to name the best drag of 2017 out of these.

Somehow as the law of physics says that light attracts darkness and darkness attract light, 2017 has been one a hell of a year for sleeper hits. If I recall after 2007, that golden year for multiplex cinema, this is one year where sleeper hits have surprised us when we least expected them.

‘Naam Shabana’ one of our first thriller spin-offs, which was executed brilliantly. ‘The Ghazi Attack’, a movie which would have just remained hidden with niche audiences on YouTube had destiny not planned it to be slated for big screen release, had us totally digging deep into its underwater thriller story. ‘Phillauri’ had the most “ghisa pita” plot delivered to us with such earthy sincerity that the audiences kept going back to theatres. ‘Hindi Medium’ on the torture that an Indian parent will choose to bring upon himself or herself just to see the kid in the IT school.

Just when we thought sleeper hits could not grow any bigger came ‘Mom’, a movie which clocked 65 crore worldwide and is still holding its own against much bigger stronger releases had the most predictable story of a mother taking revenge for a raped daughter and not many critics were willing to give this one a chance.

This one rewrote a few records for a veteran actress and it also made the critics rewrite their opinion. The audience, in the meanwhile, has still been returning to cinema screens to see a supreme in form Sridevi and a debut director's smashing work. A screenplay, which did not have superstars but had content has worked yet again.

Just when you thought miracles of 2017 will end came what most on social media are now fondly calling LUMB – ‘Lipstick Under My Burka’, Ratna Pathak is the biggest star in this one so you can imagine the pull of star cast. Yet it had the most heart-warming stories of this year and made at a peanut budget of 6-odd crore, it has so far clocked 22 crore at the box office and is still counting.

The biggest line I can make in favour of these movies is - the audience did not feel cheated when they came out of the theatre after watching these movies. Don't know if they could say the same about the biggies mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article.

2017 has given us hope through these sleeper hits - the shrewd audiences’ way of telling the smart ones that your creativity on celluloid is zilch; give us something better and worth watching.

A sleeper hit is born to shake the established makers out of the sleep point that content and focus on narrative makes a movie; not number of screens, hype and promotions. 2017 has given more than a dozen wake up calls to Bollywood biggies and I hope they listen to this. Meanwhile, let’s celebrate one of our biggest sleeper hits year so far.