Umrika – movie review

The title is Hindi for America. This is a heartwarming but ultimately sad story about a family from a small village in India that is invigorated when one of its own travels to the USA and details his adventures through letters home. With strong overtones of Slumdog Millionaire and The Lunchbox, Umrika focuses upon a mother and father and their two sons, in particular the youngest.

Mum has long felt that America is the lucky country, a place where one can do really well, but still it is with a heavy heart that she sees her eldest leave their self-contained farming community. Although communication from her son is at first non-existent, in time that changes and she takes great pride is sharing the resultant words with all the villagers. As her younger son grows from a six or seven-year-old (which was his age when his older sibling left), he eventually sets out to retrace his brother’s path. But what he finds is hardly what he expected.

Written and directed by Prashant Nair (Delhi in a Day), Umrika stars Suraj Sharma (The Life of Pi) as the younger brother Rama, while Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel) is cast as his best friend. Although Indian-born, Nair spent the next 20 years of his life living in places as diverse as Switzerland, Sudan, Syria, Zambia, Austria and the US. Then, as an adult, he went on to stay in New York, France, the Czech Republic and Germany. He never ended up living in his birth country, but somehow the alphabet of countries in which he spent time all became home.

Umrika was born of a desire to explore two different but very inter-twined subjects that Nair has continuously been exposed to throughout his life. Firstly, the film is a story about how people end up in countries other than their own, sometimes for reasons that are far beyond their control and far beyond their imagination. He wanted to look into the subject of immigration but not how it is typically treated. Rather than focus upon the trials and tribulations of immigrants and the struggles they face upon reaching their destination, Nair decided to investigate what happens up until the point the decision to immigrate is made. He wanted to tell the story of someone who ends up leaving for another country but for motivations that have nothing to do with war, famine, economic desperation persecution or greed.

The movie is also about how cultures perceive each other and how something very normal in one part of the world can be seen as unusual, even exotic, in another. Umrika has a fable-like quality to it, so that it feels slightly abstracted from reality. Nevertheless, the filmmakers also integrated a number of cultural references into the script to give a sense of time. So, for instance, there are mentions of Ghandi and the space shuttle Challenger disaster.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the soundtrack. Every song included in the film has been inspired by an American song. From “Billie Jean” to “Rock You Baby”, the music is played to coincide with the year the track was released and that correlates to the time frame represented in the movie.

Umrika is charming and warm, but contains a sinister undercurrent. The mythical nature of proceedings can’t shelter at least some of the characters from the revelations that follow. For younger brother Rama, it is a coming of age story and a tale of familial love and commitment. Suraj Sharma is convincing in the lead as the self-effacing, resilient and determined young man.

The cinematography and sound capture the true face of Indian life as seen through the working class.

It is hard to underscore the impact of Umrika unless you see it for yourself. As strong and as skillfully conceived as is the entire product, it is the ending that packs the biggest punch.
Rated M, it scores a 7½ to 8 out of 10.

Director: Prashant Nair
Cast: Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Smita Tambe, Adil Hussain, Rajesh Tailang, Prateik Babbar
Release Date: 17 September 2015
Rating: M

Alex First