As an interesting co-incidence, where 2015 began with a well- intentioned film TAKE IT EASY focusing on the stressed life of school kids and the role of parents in it creating some serious issues, 2016 begins with a similar message oriented film CHALK N DUSTER focusing on the stressed life of school teachers and their relationship with the students as well as the management - more interested in money instead of education. So where TAKE IT EASY dealt with psychological and emotional aspect of the subject, CHALK N DUSTER refers to the ethical and business aspect of the same involving the political as well as corporate section of the society revealing an ugly truth.
The second similarity between the two films remains that both the appreciable ventures are impressive and tacky in parts together, having some highly emotional sequences too making you feel for the key protagonists on screen playing all realistic characters. And unfortunately, the third similarity is, that neither TAKE IT EASY was seen by a big section of viewers, nor CHALK N DUSTER is likely to reach its actual target audience due to several debatable issues related with our personal choice of cinema, the blind (male) star-following and step-treatment of the exhibitors given to such sincere attempts.
Talking about CHALK N DUSTER individually, here is a film that has everything right and touching as far as its core important subject and leading performances are concerned. But the film certainly could have been much more impressive and moving with a better second half and another novel culmination instead of the lengthy clichéd climax showcasing a 'KBC' kind of quiz show hosted by Rishi Kapoor (playing a cameo).
It begins well with all decent sequences introducing a great cast ensemble of talented ladies namely Shabana Azmi, Zareena Wahab, Juhi Chawla, Divya Dutta, Richa Chadha and Upasana Singh. The pace never drops before intermission and you enjoy watching the clashes between its strong characters heading towards a loud volcanic outcome in the later reels. Plus the peak is rightly felt as Richa Chadha makes her entry as a journalist just along the text displayed on screen saying RECESS referring to the interval.
However, things do not turn out to be exciting enough as expected in the film's second half, in absence of any skillful execution and novel story progression making way for all routine seen before stuff instead of the much expected volcanic eruption in the heated clashes. The pace drops and the sequences turn out to be nothing fresh with a more than 15 minutes long climax as mentioned above.
Yet, thankfully the spirit remains the same as in the beginning and an extremely touching emotional quotient doesn't let you feel any repulsion watching the end proceedings probably with all moist eyes. Moreover such is the pull in all those rare facts shared in its finale that you remain engrossed throughout, despite knowing the truth that it's all going to end in the same predictable manner with the obvious win. For instance, the questions asked include, what is the meaning of KAUR used in Sikhism, what are the full forms of YAHOO & GOOGLE, what BRUCE LEE did in the initial stages of his career and more.
As the two leading teachers, both Shabana Azmi and Juhi Chawla excel as true teachers along with Zareena Wahab and Upasana Singh doing complete justice with their given characters as required. Divya Dutta playing the negative role does it well (without any actual depth given by the writers) but Richa Chadha is shockingly wasted in a role that could have been done by anyone with a pretty face (which is quite a shame!). In the male leads once again we have Jackie Shroff simply doing nothing significant in his few scenes and Aryan Babbar also remaining under-utilized as the partner in crime with Divya, whereas Rishi Kapoor is fine in his surprising cameo towards the end.
In totality, CHALK N DUSTER is an appreciable yet uneven project from director Jayant Gilatar. It has a decent camera-work, just okay dialogues but an interesting background score demanding attention at times. Besides I really liked the way the composer and sound designer treated the voice in songs describing the importance A GURU in our life using traditional verses. As per its script, the brief references of a teacher's personal life post the school hours work well whereas the clichéd melodrama around the illness and the finale quiz doesn't, that could have been dealt differently.
Having said that, there still cannot be any denial to the fact that this honest effort surely deserves to be applauded (to a large extent) ignoring all it's the major hiccups and average insertions, as (nowadays) Hindi Cinema rarely gets into such educating, realistic mode talking about our basic social problems and lack of moral values.
As an important film CHALK N DUSTER brings forward a scary issue wherein we are not actually taking good care of the most crucial and guiding figures of our lives, our school teachers displaying a flawed vision. The corporates are clearly considering 'Education' as another profit-oriented industry instead of a nation-building exercise and the teachers are openly treated as easily replaceable clerks without any individual importance or a contributing value.
Hence serving its purpose well, CHALK N DUSTER works at many levels giving a significant message and with such an inviting cast ensemble of all extremely talented ladies, its surely deserves to be given a chance by the thinking viewers.
