My head hurts. Like, actually hurts. I feel like I just tried to solve a quantum physics equation in my head and the only answer was "everyone is full of shit." It’s 1:37 AM and the Netflix "Are you still watching?" Yes, I'm still watching, you judgmental black screen. I'm just... processing. Serious Men. What did I just watch?
That man. Ayyan Mani. He’s a monster. A complete and utter monster. But I think I kind of love him? Or I love hating him? I don't know. He’s this Dalit guy working in a fancy science institute, seething with resentment, and he just... decides to manufacture a genius son. Out of thin air. Just like that. A lie. A beautiful, massive, insane lie that he builds brick by brick. And I'm sitting here on my couch, wrapped in my duvet, just nodding along. Like, yeah, that makes sense. Do the thing. What does that say about me?
I watched it on Netflix, obviously. Where else would I watch something like this? I needed the ability to pause it and just stare at my ceiling for five minutes. I needed to be able to grab a fistful of chips during the really tense parts. This isn't a movie for the big screen; it's a movie for your own private space, where you can react without anyone judging you. And I reacted. I physically jolted when he first coached his son to say that nonsense about primordial black holes. I let out this loud, ugly laugh that echoed in my empty room. It was the sound of pure, unadulterated audacity.
There's this one scene that's just burned into my brain. The press conference. The little boy, Ayyan, is sitting on a table in front of a dozen reporters, looking completely lost. And his dad is just out of frame, hissing answers at him. "Tell them about the... uh... cosmic inflation!" And the kid just parrots it, this dead-eyed delivery of scientific concepts he couldn't possibly understand. The cameras are flashing, the reporters are scribbling, and the whole thing is this horrifying, hilarious spectacle. I was leaning so far forward I almost fell off the couch. It was the perfect image of our world. Performance over substance. A complete fabrication being treated as gospel truth because it makes a good story.
It reminds me of this one time in seventh grade. I told everyone I had backstage passes to a concert. It was a tiny, stupid lie, just to sound cool. But then people started asking questions. Who did you meet? What was the band like? I had to invent so much detail. I described the drummer's handshake, the weird smell of the dressing room. It became this elaborate web of bullshit, and I was terrified of being found out. I lived in constant anxiety for a week until I finally "got sick" and couldn't go to school. Anyway, not important. But that feeling, that desperate energy of trying to keep a lie alive... that's what this whole movie feels like. Just amplified to a million.
I thought I loved the ending. I really did. The way it all comes crashing down, but also... doesn't? He gets exposed, but he also kind of wins? He gets his son into a better school, he exposes the hypocrisy of the system, and he walks away with his family, a little battered, but intact. But now that I'm typing this... was it actually kind of a cop-out? I thought I loved the ambiguity, but was it just a bit too neat? Too clever for its own good? Maybe I just wanted to see him completely crash and burn. A proper, fiery explosion of a downfall. But life isn't like that, is it? Liars often just... get away with it. Or they get a new start. I don't know. I'm going in circles.
Honestly, the whole thing just made me feel tired. Tired of the performance. Ayyan Mani has to perform being a subservient assistant. Then he has to perform being the proud father of a genius. His son has to perform being a prodigy. His boss has to perform being a serious scientist (who is also a fraud, of course). Everyone is playing a part. And I'm just sitting here, on my comfy couch, with the power of the remote in my hand. I could pause their world. I could rewind and watch that lie be told again. It felt god-like. And also incredibly depressing.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui is just... he's not human. He's a force of nature. The way his face shows every flicker of contempt, every flash of desperation, every moment of quiet pride. You hate his guts, but you feel for him. You root for his lie, even when you know it's wrong and it's going to hurt people. He’s so damn smart, which is the worst part. He could have probably done it for real, if the system wasn't so stacked against him. Or maybe that's just another excuse. I don't know. My brain is too fried to figure out the social commentary right now.
So yeah. I watched it at home. In the dark. By myself. And now I feel weirdly complicit, like I helped him build the lie by watching it all unfold. I need to watch something dumb now. Like a video of a cat falling off a table. Something simple and honest.
8/10. - banger
-Ishaan