Hichki (transl. Hiccup; Hindi pronunciation: ) is a 2018 Indian Hindi comedy-drama film, directed by Sidharth P Malhotra and produced by Maneesh Sharma under the banner Yash Raj Films. The film is an adaptation of Brad Cohen's autobiography Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had, of which Yash Raj Films acquired the rights.
| Hichki | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Siddharth P. Malhotra |
| Produced by | Maneesh Sharma |
| Written by | Ankur Chaudhry (dialogues) |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Story by |
|
| Based on |
Front of the Class by
|
| Starring | Rani Mukerji |
| Music by |
(Songs) Jasleen Royal (Score) Hitesh Sonik |
| Cinematography | Avinash Arun |
| Edited by | Shweta Venkat Mathew |
Production company |
Yash Raj Films |
| Distributed by | Yash Raj Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 116 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
| Budget | ?20 crore |
| Box office | ?76.54 crore |
Hichki stars Rani Mukerji in the lead role of an aspiring teacher having Tourette syndrome, who must prove herself by educating a group of underprivileged students. The film's trailer was launched on December 19, 2017, and it was theatrically released on 23 March 2018 to generally positive reviews from critics. Hichki was also screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival on June 16, 2018.
Contents
Plot
Naina Mathur (Rani Mukerji), an aspiring teacher with a BEd and MSc, suffers from Tourette syndrome. Her condition causes her to make uncontrollable sounds likened to hiccups. Although she has been unsuccessful for the past 5 years in landing a teaching job, she is supported in her ambitions by her mother (Supriya Pilgaonkar) and her younger brother (Hussain Dalal). It is revealed that her father (Sachin Pilgaonkar) divorced her mother several years earlier, which is why Naina's relationship with him is strained.
One day, Naina receives an offer to teach at the prestigious St. Notker's School, a job which she had applied to 5 times before. When asked why she was so persistent for the particular school, Naina explains that she herself graduated from St. Notker's and was inspired by Mr. Khan (Vikram Gokhale), a former principal. He had believed in her and announced that she would never be expelled for being different. Naina's unwavering confidence impresses the current school committee and they assign her to 9F, a new class section. It is revealed that the school was desperate to hire her as all other teachers had failed to get the class to cooperate. Naina notices that the students are unruly, misbehaved and are visibly different. Shyamlal, the school's peon (Asif Basra), discloses to her that the 9F students belong to families from a nearby slum and that they were given admission to fill the government-prescribed quota for the underprivileged.
On the first day of class, Naina's students imitate her sounds and mock her. She decides to teach them in an interactive way, determined to show resilience when dealing with the class. The students prank her with liquid nitrogen and this causes a mild explosion that shatters the classroom windows. Naina prevents the class from being expelled by taking the blame and saying that it was a badly executed chemistry example. Mr. Wadia (Neeraj Kabi), the teacher of class 9A, strongly dislikes the 9F students. His class is composed of student prefects, who are academically excellent. Naina challenges Mr. Wadia that students from 9F will earn prefect badges as well.
The school's annual Science Fair project is assigned to 9A, who are prevented from mingling with 9F by Mr. Wadia. They yearn to experience the interactive experiments that 9F gets to partake in but Mr. Wadia dismisses them as inferior to textbook learning. Meanwhile, 9F warms up to Naina and begin wholeheartedly participating in class; she teaches them to be brave in their pursuit of knowledge and helps them realize their individual strengths. Aatish (Harsh Mayar), the sole student who remains cold towards Naina, secretly sabotages 9A's project in his vengeance. This is discovered by Mr. Wadia and the Principal (Shivkumar Subramaniam) decides to expel 9F. Once again, Naina prevents this by promising that the class will pass their final exams, but she is unable to prevent their suspension from attending school till the exams. Dejected, she tells her students that they have shattered her attempt to help them. Aatish's classmates help him realize his mistake and he publicly expresses regret.
All of 9F studies diligently for their exams. Shyamlal supplies Aatish copies of the wrong question paper so they would fail, but when he presents them to his classmates, they refuse to cheat and he gives up on the idea as well. Exam results prove Naina's promise as the 9F students pass successfully. However, the class is accused of cheating as Shyamlal confesses to supplying question papers, and the Principal decides to publicly expel them during the prefect pinning ceremony. Prior to the event, one of Mr. Wadia's students reveals that he bribed Shyamlal into supplying the wrong question papers, and he realizes that 9F did not cheat. Mr. Wadia takes to the stage and announces the he, himself, wrongfully tried to fail the students. He then applauds Naina's transformative teaching and asks her to pin the prefect badge to her students who ranked first. She later tells him that she doubts that he bribed Shyamlal. Mr. Wadia smiles and says that he doubts she caused a liquid nitrogen explosion. With the combined efforts of 9A and 9F, the Science Fair project is rebuilt and wins the competition.
The film shows Naina's last day at St. Notker's where she has served for 25 years and has been Principal. As she walks out of the school, the school's students bid farewell. The last to happily bid her adieu are the students of 9F who are now successful adults.
Cast
- Rani Mukerji as Naina Mathur
- Naisha Khanna as Young Naina
- Shivkumar Subramaniam as Principal
- Neeraj Kabi as Mr. Wadia
- Supriya Pilgaonkar as Mrs. Mathur, Naina's mother
- Sachin Pilgaonkar as Mr. Mathur, Naina's father
- Hussain Dalal as Vinay Mathur, Naina's brother
- Harsh Mayar as Aatish
- Sparsh Khanchandani as Oru
- Benjamin Yangal as Ashwin
- Kalaivanan Kannan as Raghu
- Swaraj Kumar as Killam
- Rohit Suresh Saraf as Akshay
- Vikram Gokhale as Mr Khan
- Asif Basra as Shyamlal
- Riddhi Arora as Sunidhi
- Suprio Bose as Mr. Pereira
- Jannat Zubair Rahmani as Natasha
- Kunal Shiinde as Senior Pankaj
- Aman Gandotra in a cameo
Production
Development
After acquiring the rights of Brad Cohen's book Front of the Class, director Siddharth P. Malhotra approached multiple production studios over the next four years but none of them were willing to back his project as they couldn't see any commercial scope in it. Finally Siddharth met Aditya Chopra who approved the project after a narration and directed him towards Maneesh Sharma as he himself was busy with his own directorial venture Befikre. Siddharth's original draft of the script had a male as its central protagonist which he changed into a female on the suggestion of Maneesh Sharma.
Casting
In October 2016, it was reported that Rani Mukerji had signed Yash Raj Films next venture being directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra. In February 2017, Rani Mukherji herself confirmed that she would be playing the lead role in Siddharth P Malhotra's next film titled Hichki.
Filming
The principal photography commenced on 4 April 2017 and the final scenes were shot on 5 June 2017 at Mehboob Studios in Bandra, Mumbai. The crew wrapped up the patch up shoot with Mukerji on 12 November 2017.[citation needed]
Soundtrack
| Hichki | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Jasleen Royal | ||||
| Released | 20 February 2018[22] | |||
| Genre | Feature film soundtrack | |||
| Length | 20:32 | |||
| Language | Hindi | |||
| Label | Yash Raj Music | |||
| Producer | Aditya Chopra | |||
| Jasleen Royal chronology | ||||
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The music of Hichki is composed by Jasleen Royal and the Background score is composed by Hitesh Sonik. The lyrics have been penned by Raj Shekhar, Jaideep Sahni, Neeraj Rajawat, Aditya Sharma and David Klyton. The music album of the film features 7 tracks and was released by Yash Raj Music on 20 February 2018.[22]
All music composed by Jasleen Royal.
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