All is well...?

Rating: 6/10 (5 February 2020)

The prospect of a knockabout comedy that lasts for over 160 minutes isn't an enticing one, but luckily the title "3 Idiots" is something of a misnomer. There's some broad humour, "comedy" characters and lots of scatological references, but also depictions of suicide and reflections on the human condition. Western audiences may find this tonal inconsistency hard to take, as an onscreen suicide by hanging is followed by one of many songs.
The fifth Aamir Khan movie I've seen, he's an always likeable and engaging presence, but one criticism is that his characters never seem realistically flawed (Save for Dangal). Always the wisest person in the room, his "think outside the box" method of living embodies many of his portrayals and his passing of philosophy to his fellow students borders on preaching. Khan has the likeability and charisma to pull this off and prevent it from being too cloying, but in a movie where he becomes a famous scientist, redevises an entire system of learning and delivers a baby, it's something of a surprise to see him near a mass of water at the end of the movie and not start walking on it.
Currently on Netflix in the UK, there is some issue with the meaning of words and phrases being changed when translated: I know enough to realise that the subtitled "ass" said around an hour into the movie is really "dog", but I wasn't aware that balatkar (rape) was said throughout the doctored speech scene, with it changed to a more benign "screwed" for the UK audience. An interesting article on how the difference in ratings between men and women could be divided (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-online-movie-ratings-werent-based-almost-entirely-on-what-men-think/) shows that this film would be over a hundred places lower if only the votes from women were taken. All, it seems, is not well.