Srikanth (2024) Movie Review: Watching and appreciating disability films often becomes a mutually inclusive affair on the part of the viewer. There comes a sense of having learned something, of becoming more aware of an unacquainted experience. Movies are, after all, machines generating empathy. Somewhere between tapping those emotions and raising disability awareness, however, these films perpetrate and even deepen ableist stereotypes and cliches.
For a long time, it seemed like the era of blockbuster disability films was mostly over. Micromanaging cinematic depictions of disability on celluloid has always been a subject of interest primarily due to the broad stroke of emotions it often comes with. The sensibilities around the way we perceive such conditions may have changed – from consciously forming a new grammatical framework around addressing such disabled person’s needs to being more mindful about casting appropriate actors for the role – but the storytelling avenue of such subjects providing an emotional catharsis speaks to our need of seeing depictions that say the right things. The template becomes exploitative not because it attempts to convey a ‘positive message’ about the differently abled but because it renders the lead’s condition as rudimentary over their arcs.
In Tushar Hiranandani’s latest film, “Srikanth,” we get the real-life story of Srikanth Bolla, the visually impaired self-made billionaire. Fuelled with his extraordinary ambition as well as the commendable rags to riches scaffolding, we see the titular lead go from a rural Andhra village to becoming one of the country’s leading industrialists. But rather than internalizing the seeds of this vision into the film’s screenplay, “Srikanth” brushes past the heightened points of a difficult life in an overlong feature that vociferously settles for broad-brush-stroke storytelling that leaves no room for the internal conflict of the titular lead to register.
And when I say vociferously, I mainly imply to the surfeit dose of background music that consistently attempts to punctuate the emotions on screen. A usual Bollywood blemish, sure. But the problem with the film is in how it comes across as a collection of loud reels into the life of a man who aimed for the sky. It misreads supercilious commentary as social enlightenment. With Rao playing the lead part, you know you’d get both sincerity and skill. But you also know the film flounders its main objective when the performative nature of it overpowers the threads surrounding it.
As Srikanth’s enduring support, the teacher (played by Jyotika), who stood by him throughout his journey, comes across as a placarding character. Ditto with the love interest (played by Alaya F), who gets a random introduction as the young woman fascinated by the man whom she eventually inspires on a life-affirming path. While a few sparks in the screenplay act as highlights in the otherwise Wikipedia-esque string of events, the eventual conflict of the movie only compounds its biggest issue. It constantly pushes unbaked binary emotions at the narrative center without ever interlacing them with ushering curiosity.
This is a way of basically saying how “Srikhant” succumbs to the very tropes that make the template irreverent. The makers never attempt to delve into the complexities of the exceptional man’s close ones – people the narrative as well as the titular lead hails as caring paragons during such predicaments. For instance, the gratification of Srikant’s father turns into dismay when he holds his sightless infant in his arms, never attains a well-realized arc.
The same echoes in the hazily put-together sequences that mean to underscore the untrodden path that takes Srikanth into the kind of unbelievable path that most people, let alone those with physical challenges, can only dream of. It tries to put him at the center of the frame as the beacon of inspiring bravado, yet it eventually comes across as a redundant device that inscribes the condescending nature of the film. And by extension, of what the subject matter often borderlines in its execution in the medium.
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