Laal Singh Chaddha

Director: Advait Chandan

Actors: Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan

Rating: ****

Firstly, Forrest Gump (1994), besides a film, is also a metaphor/phrase. And it doesn’t mean someone slow/dim witted, as much as a person to whom things just happen, as he breezily goes along — leading to an autobiography of the Everyman of sorts, who’s inevitably at the right place, at the right time. Let’s say he’s thoroughly blessed by the gods of non-fiction. I’ve met a few ‘Forrest Gumps’ in my life. Surely you have too. Unless you’re a journalist, who actively converses only to hear others’ stories, people often tell you theirs, at odd places, among strangers, at a bar, park-bench, dating app, airport, hospital....

Or the second-class compartment of a train, where Laal Singh Chaddha (Aamir Khan) is travelling to Punjab, among passengers who are glued to his life’s phenomenal accounts. What’s Laal Singh Chaddha’s story? Well, that’s this film.