Song ‘n’ Dance:
If Hai Junoon and other such shows aimed at the youth are to be believed, then all today’s youngsters aspire to is taking part in talent contests and reality shows and becoming famous! Never mind that nobody remembers who won the last ‘talent’ competition.
In the age of attention deficit, the show (on JioHotstar) runs over 20 episodes and tells the cliche-ridden story of a bunch of students who look upon winning Greatest Of All Time (GOATs) competition as the pinnacle of achievement. The college where they do everything but study is called Anderson’s and is supposedly a business and media studies institute. However, they rarely crack open a book or attend class. A boy comes all the way from Jalandhar to this Mumbai college so that he can participate in GOATs, after a few weeks of temping as a lecturer the teacher wanders into the library asking where the history section is located! Even Dharma’s campus capers were not in such a weird La La Land.
The man the whole world idolizes is Gagan Ahuja (Nein Nitin Mukesh), a Grammy winning musician, who plays the piano, sings in Hindi in Budapest and is invited by the crown prince to perform for royalty! But against the wishes of his carping agent Goldie (Elnaaz Norouzi), he returns to his alma mater to celebrate Founder’s Day, to meet his mentor, Iyer (Boman Irani, in a mercifully brief role, which he hams through). Iyer is the music coach behind Anderson’s choir, called The Supersonics, which has been winning the GOAT trophy for 15 years, because he says things like “music is an emotion.” Who knows what he teaches and what they learn because the “choir” does covers of Bollywood songs, some with lyrics altered a bit, and some with odd words like “Basake Dreamon Ki Duniya.” The GOAT bar is set very low.
Subhash aka Sebi (Sumedh Mudgalkar), the slum boy from Koliwada, who has got into Anderson’s on a “cultural quota” wants to form a dance troupe and represent the college at the GOATs contest, but is turned down by the dean (Sharon Prabhakar credited as Padamsee). He wants dance to be supported by the college, like music is, though it is debatable whether the energetic jumping about and twerking that they do, can be classified as the kind of dance that wins trophies for excellence. The college may or may not offer an education, but they do have an endless list of events at which the students can perform.
Sebi decides to put together his own team, his buddy Rohit (Kunwar Amar) offers them a rehearsal space and his services as a choreographer. They call themselves The Misfits and pit themselves against the elite Supersonics. On his side is his rich girlfriend Shona (Santana Roach), a visually challenged dancer, Tuhin (Sanchit Kundra), his best friend Tahira (Devangshi Sen), an out-of-the-closet gay, Kushal (Priyank Sharma), Moonmoon, poor girl pretending to be trendy (Elisha Mayor) and the quiet supporter Jazz (Mohan Pandey). When they need a staff member to support them, they zero in on Pearl (Jaqueline Fernandez), whose anger management issues led her from dancing atop a bar counter in Goa to teaching history in the college, because her aunt is the Dean! Later, she is sent to a healing centre, has a nervous breakdown and is told by a guru type to hammer nails in the wall and then pull them out, as part of her therapy. (As funny as her non-Goan accent and inappropriate dance moves.)
Gagan takes over the coaching of the Supersonics himself, with some help from Iyer’s daughter Charu (Anusha Mani), and cracks the whip on the singers that include Bikram (Siddarth Nigam), who impressed him by singing a bhajan on a guitar; the prima donna influencer, Swati (Yukti Thareja), Adah (Saachi Bindra), the daughter of a popular music composer, an in-the-closet gay SRK (Aryan Katoch) and a rebellious type (Arnav Maggo). He also has a brief romance with a divorcee (Shazahn Padamsee) with a small daughter. He ruins it all by his destructive competitive edge that intimidates his students and affects his own career.
The plot goes pretty much as expected, but director Abhishek Sharma, creator Aditya Bhat and their team of writers sat with a check list of issues that affect today’s teenagers, and ticked the ones used in the show. Underage drinking and sex are not even considered worth bothering about; and Gagan does drugs, not so much the kids; So, sure, there’s the LGBT matter, depression and mental health, body shaming, risky sexual behaviour, student politics and so on. Solution? Not professional counselling, but a confessional podcast by Kushal. To its credit, Hai Junoon, also talks about ethics, principles and fairness—when of them does something wrong to get ahead, the others vehemently oppose it.
The young cast, probably picked from the same casting pool, look enthusiastic and eager to please; parade around in the latest fashion, though expressing genuine emotions is still beyond their skill set. As far as performances go, Sumedh Mudgalkar is head and shoulders above the rest. Among the grown-ups, Neil Nitin Mukesh does the best he can with the role given to him. With its music made for dancing, Hai Junoon is clearly aimed at a Gen Z audience, and if this mindless fluff is what works with them, so be it; their parents can worry. After they have recovered from hitting the wall of deja vu head on!
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
