Siddharth

I didn't feel it's a movie.. very realistic. Superb acting.. nice movie

What was the point of making this movie if you weren't going to have an ending? It's "based" on a true story, but children are disappearing all over the world. It doesn't just happen to poor, uneducated families in India.

An ending, even a tragic one about what became of the boy, would have saved this movie. It came across to me as pointless. I would have rated it lower except that the acting was very good.

Siddharth is a film inspired by Canadian director Richie Mehta's (I'll Follow You Down, 2013) chance encounter in Delhi with a man who asked him for help in finding a place called Dongri. When Mehta asked what Dongri was, the man told him that it's a place where he thinks his lost son was kidnapped and sent to. Siddharth is Metha's fictional exploration surrounding the disappearance of twelve-year-old Siddharth after he was sent by his father to work in another village.

Siddharth is a suspenseful and insightful drama that explores the difficulties of life for the poor and undereducated in India. Mehta has successfully crafted a film that gives the viewers a real sense of location and family—he takes you into the Saini family's world, from living in their very small apartment to working on the busy streets of New Delhi as a chain-wallah (someone who fixes zippers). With bleak reality, Mehta shows Western viewers just how impossible life is. Siddhartha's father, Mahendra, played by Rajesh Tailang with sensitive honesty and subtly, not only doesn't own a photograph of his son, but also cannot take time off to search for him without losing money to feed his family. Despite the film's harsh realities, Mehta successfully stays clear of preaching to the audience and simply allows the film to live and breathe. Regardless of the subjects of child trafficking, family loss, and a desperate world without hope, there is an intelligently crafted sense of optimism. As an alternative to the nutrient vacant, car chase, bang-bang summer blockbusters, Siddharth is a film that is definitely worth checking out and digesting.

—John David West

What an astounding film! A grim and difficult subject - the disappearance of a child - told with such simplicity and extraordinary warmth and care. Every image of this movie breathes authenticity and avoids all the pitfalls of sensationalising and dramatising the story. No Hollywood here, no sentimentality, just deeply felt compassion and flawless attention to life on the streets of India.. Rarely have I felt a movie to be so real and humane. A great achievement and a film that will stay with me for a very long time.

This film deserves a much, much wider audience.

Hope is the poor mans bread it has been said and here you get to experience it up close and personal where it is hard to ignore and watch it turn into hopelessness and then despair and hope again. The theme of this movie is simple. You and your family see and hear from each other every day and you have no reason to question the experience until it stops for whatever reason. Then, your unique story is presented and it unfolds. If an adult goes missing, well that's one set of feelings. If a child, that's another. When we stop to even consider the possibilities of what could have happened, we are overwhelmed and inundated with the worse thoughts imaginable including organ donor, sex trade and forced labor. If you just read what I wrote and monitored your own feelings while doing so...there is your movie. Watch this for this families story while we glimpse another world of poverty, different beliefs and one thing stands out...America is the hope of the world especially when you see how others live and work