‘Vijay 69’ Review: A Corny Underdog Drama With No Chill

Director: Akshay Roy
Writer: Akshay Roy
Cast: Anupam Kher, Chunky Pandey, Mihir Ahuja, Guddi Maruti, Vrajesh Hirjee
Streaming on: Netflix

There are some movies you just want to like before you watch them. Personal biases are an integral part of the cinema experience. For instance, I used to have a soft spot for stories that romanticised a version of myself: slice-of-life introvert tales or dysfunctional family dramas. My focus has now moved to aspirational old-people stories; perhaps it has something to do with my parents aging with all sorts of ailments. The prospect of watching Vijay 69, then, was an inviting one. Not only is it director Akshay Roy’s first film since the criminally underappreciated Meri Pyaari Bindu (2017), it stars Anupam Kher as Vijay Mathew, a 69-year-old widower who attempts to become India’s oldest triathlete. I went into the film expecting to revise my reality — of having a 71-year-old father allergic to physical fitness — for a few hours. A bit of sports thrown in can’t hurt matters. What could possibly go wrong? And what could possibly go wrong when you have to ask what could possibly go wrong?

Apparently, a lot. Vijay 69 has the right framework. A former swimming coach goes through an existential crisis when he realises that he hasn’t ‘achieved’ much in life, so he sets out to make a splash. After living for others, he finally strives to live for himself — an endurance event involving a 1.5 km swim, 40 km cycle race and 10 km run should do it. His psychological struggle is palpable. But when this same framework is put through the YRF algorithm, the setup looks like this: Vijay is mistakenly presumed to have killed himself, he gatecrashes his own funeral, samples his coffin, and gets mad at the emptiness of the eulogy (“good Rummy player and Garba dancer”) that his best friend wrote for him. That’s how the ordinariness of his life hits him. God forbid he simply wakes up a different man.

It’s not enough that someone like Vijay is lonely and purposeless. In this world, his transformation means nothing without a quirky trigger or two. No scene exists without idiosyncrasies, dialed-up moods and an over-the-top treatment. He must have a potty mouth. He must have a Parsi buddy who looks like Chunky Pandey is spoofing his Housefull character Aakhri Pasta in a Parsi-Italian accent. He must have a friend dying of cancer and an annoying but kind neighbour. He must have a late wife who shared his love for a Waqt (1965) song so much that it scores the entire climax. He must have a daughter who behaves like Piku trapped in Baghban. He must have a younger rival, a sellout journalist who ruins his sponsor hopes, a funny coach, a dismissive triathlon committee and a community that mocks him for even trying. How else will we know that Vijay is one in a million?

Vijay 69, like most studio movies of its ilk, is a small film with a big heart problem. The high pitch isn’t unfamiliar, but it’s at odds with the inherent fortitude of the protagonist. Vijay is supposed to be an antidote to the perception of Indian aging. He is a loud and spirited guy, which is nice to see. But that doesn’t mean the film itself needs to be loud and over-spirited. It needn’t play out like a vintage Rajkumar Hirani film that’s overdosed on its own cholesterol pills. The playfulness reeks of formula rather than feeling. For example, Vijay’s inspirational turn is given a tropey backstory — he sacrificed a promising swimming career to care for his sick wife. But why? His physical challenge is supplemented with an old-young friendship, a hospitalisation stint, a random marketing gimmick, and media coverage of an event (including “bad” commentators) that thinks it’s a reality show. But why? This is a fictional film, yet it is infected with the insecurity of a dramatised biopic.

It doesn’t help that the craft struggles to sell the physicality. The editing strains to conceal the actor’s body double; the close-ups and wide shots look like they’re happening in separate settings. The upslope cycling sequences are awkwardly shot; there’s no feel for pace and perspective. The training montages unfold like cute Youtube skits. The writing is superficial because it conspires to make us feel sorry for Vijay under the guise of rooting for him. At one point, he asks his daughter for money for a new cycle, but when she scolds him (again), he plays the Baghban card and remarks that he used to unconditionally cheer for her when she was 9 years old. Seconds later, he is seen sadly walking away with slouched shoulders, similar to an early scene where he slinks away after a guest asks what he did for a living. Mind you, the guest is not normal; he must be a cocky caricature. I’m all for emotional manipulation, but perhaps family-friendly Hindi cinema should consider the possibility that not all young(er) folks are idiots.

Much of Vijay 69 seems to be built in service of its star. One of the great mysteries of Bollywood is the fact that Anupam Kher has made a versatile career out of playing men older than him. That remains the curse of his fantastic screen debut in Saaransh (1984), where the 28-year-old actor was scarily convincing as a grief-stricken 65-year-old man. But the irony of Vijay Mathew is that 69-year-old Kher plays a man exactly his own age like an older man. It’s a hard habit to shake off. He starts off fine in the quieter moments — a reminder of what Kher can do with his eyes — but the film leans into his mainstream persona once Vijay takes flight. Vijay doesn’t fall, he collapses; he doesn’t cry, he breaks down; he doesn’t suffer, he semi-dies; he doesn’t move, he gears into motion; he doesn’t breathe, he wheezes and gasps and chokes. The performance itself delivers a performance.

It’s as if Vijay is putting us through a training montage: feel harder, react more, respect deeper. At some point, as in Uunchai (2022), this borders on age propaganda. The volume might have worked in a certain kind of film, but it’s sensory overkill in a journey shaped by mental strength. One of the scenes features Vijay’s daughter tearfully confessing that she is proud of him for how single-minded he is; they embrace and weep together. It’s a necessary moment, one that challenges the hypermasculinity of Indian fatherhood. It’s an image that I thought would move me in context of my own muted relationship with my father. But Vijay reaches for the lump in our throat so hard that it stops short of a surgical procedure. If anything, my feelings sprinted in the opposite direction. Correction: they swam, cycled and ran away at 2000 frames and 200 heartbeats a second.