TimeOut

Cast: Chirag Malhotra, Pranay Pachauri, Kaamya Sharma, Vedabrata Rao, Sanya Arora, Riya Kothari, Aditya Jain, Shiva Dawar, Raunaq Chopra, Tarana Marwah

Writer/Director: Rikhil Bahadur

Producer/s: Shachi Sharma, Rikhil Bahadur

Plot:

Rating: 2/5 Stars (Two stars)

Star Cast: Chirag Malhotra, Pranay Pachauri, Kaamya Sharma, Vedabrata Rao, Sanya Arora, Riya Kothari, Aditya Jain, Shiva Dawar, Raunaq Chopra, Tarana Marwah

Director: Rikhil Bahadur

What’s Good: Timeout has a good topic at hand and tries really hard to make an impression. It is a concise film and that could be appreciated since it mostly runs on track without beating around the bush.

What’s Bad: The makers of Timeout become a tad little too ambitious as they try to juggle the concepts of coming of age, identity crisis and choice of sexual orientation all rolled into one.

Loo Break: Yeah! Would hardly miss anything.

Watch or Not?: Timeout seems like a amateurish attempt of making a short film become a commercial one. With bigger issues at hand, the film fails to do justice to them and hence is passable.

User Rating: 

Timeout revolves around the life of 14 year-old Gaurav (Chirag Malhotra) who is extremely close to his elder brother Mihir (Pranay Pachauri) and dreams of following his footsteps of becoming the Basketball captain and having all the girl attention. Everything changes when Gaurav accidentally finds out that Mihir is gay and walks in on his brother and his partner. Unable to accept the reality, Gaurav’s strange behavior distances him from his friends too. In spite of being brought up in an extremely liberal environment by their parents, it is difficult for Gaurav to come to terms with this.

Thus, the film revolves around growing up, acceptance and rebellious phase of Gaurav and his friends.

Timeout Review: Script Analysis

Taking us back to the school days, Timeout takes us down the memory lane of our crushes, the stupid hang-outs with friends and the importance of sports in our lives. It is interestingly portrayed how playing a certain sport gives the boys a boost for their masculinity. The first half of the film is quite typical with a cliched representation of elite high-school kids who hang-out at nights in their fancy cars and have school bands performing rock numbers. The dialogues too are made quirky so as to make the friendly banter sound perfect.

It is the second half that changes the tone of the film. Mihir coming out of the closet forms the major part of the story. It is amazingly shown how he confesses it to his girlfriend and her reaction when she shockingly mentions, “So I am in love with a guy who is gay”.

The change in Mihir and Gaurav’s relationship is shown quite aptly. It’s one thing to support homosexuality but accepting one’s own brother indulging in it is difficult. Unfortunately, the writers miss out on carving out better characters of the parents. Although one of the scenes where Mihir’s mother Googles “how to fix your gay child” is brilliant.

There is too much going on in the script and hence Gaurav getting friend-zoned by his best friend is a little off track from its main theme.

Timeout Review: Star Performance

Chirag Malhotra as Gaurav does a decent job. He plays the 14-year-old Gaurav quite well.

Pranav Pachauri who plays Mihir, does a good job. The best part is that his body language is extremely normal and it is a delight to see someone play a gay character without being caricatured.

Kaamya Sharma as Ananya looks pretty and will definitely remind everyone of their high-school crush.