Umrika



Umrika is a 2015 Indian Hindi comedy-drama film written and directed by Prashant Nair, and produced by Swati Shetty and Manish Mundra. It features Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Smita Tambe, Rajesh Tailang, Pramod Pathak, Adil Hussain, Amit Sial, Sauraseni Maitra and Prateik Babbar.
Umrika'' premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award. Director Nair said that the film is "about the mythology of America, and more generally, how cultures perceive each other".

Plot

The film begins with Udai leaving his village for the United States. Following the death of his father, Udai's younger brother Ramakant realises that the letters his family has been receiving from Udai have been forged by his father and uncle, and learns that Udai vanished when he reached his port city, Mumbai. He embarks upon a journey to locate his brother.

Cast

The soundtrack of Umrika consists of 17 tracks composed by Dustin O'Halloran.

Release

Shortly after its premiere, the film was sold by sales agent Beta Cinema to France, Germany, Austria, Australia, South Korea and numerous other territories, making it one of the most widely distributed Indian independent films of recent times that was incidentally, never released in India. The film had its European premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 2015.

Reception

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes Umrika has an approval score of 80% based on 10 reviews with an average rating of 6.6 out of 10. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called Umrika a "warmly intelligent film" and included it in his 25 Films of note at Sundance 2015. Dennis Harvey of Variety praised the film, giving kudos to "Nair’s soundly constructed script and deft handling of a very good cast." Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter stated Nair has managed to incorporate several big and abstract topics—including what ties us to our families and place of birth and the extent to which these things are important—into a story in which they become highly personal for the characters. Nikola Grozdanovic of IndieWire gave the film a rating of C- saying that, '"Umrika" is ultimately a non sequitur story that, at worst, holds no weight, and, at best, makes little sense to someone born outside of Indian values and traditions.' The New Zealand Herald gave the film a rating of 3.5 out of 5 and said that, "It's a sobering watch and an interesting, if not outstanding, film." Paul Byrnes of The Sydney Morning Herald gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 saying that, "Umrika achieves remarkable power as a story by concentrating its view of America through the eyes of people who have never been there." Sharon Hurst of Cinephilia gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 and said that, "Umrika captures the anomaly and paradox that is life in India. But it is also a finely wrought narrative that ticked enough boxes for it to be a crowd-pleasing winner of the Audience Award at Sundance 2015."

Awards