‘Hope Aur Hum’ Is About Nothing And Says Nothing Of Consequence

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Director Sudip Bandyopadhyay’s “Hope Aur Hum” (Hope And Us) is like a jigsaw puzzle that you desperately hope will fall into place in the end. But 95 minutes later, you realise that there are several pieces missing, with no chance of it ever forming a coherent picture.

The film is supposed to be a slice-oflife story about a family, but this one meanders to no end, making it seem like an interminably long film despite its short runtime.

The two bright spots are Naseeruddin Shah, who plays the patriarch of the Srivastava family, and Sajid Kabir, who plays his precocious grandson Anu. Kabir brings in genuine humour and is the best thing about the film.

Nagesh (Shah) is desperate to repair his beloved copy machine, a 100-yearold beauty that he treasures more than anything else.

But for the rest of the family, especially his daughter-in-law Aditi (Sonali Kulkarni), the machine is just a waste of space and time. Anu sympathises with his grandfather, but is distracted by a spooky encounter during a visit to his maternal grandmother’s house.

The third storyline involves a lost phone belonging to Nitin, Nagesh’s younger son. Of all the tracks in the film, this one is the weakest, which is saying something for a film that barely has any strengths.

“Hope Aur Hum” is one of those movies that is about nothing and says nothing of consequence. If only Shah and Kabir were given heftier roles.