A film that reads like a well-meaning but verbose essay on mental trauma and unmitigated grief, Raj Rachakonda’s 8 A.M. Metro is like taking a train journey where the name of the upcoming station is blared many times before reaching the platform, leaving little for surprise and imagination.
Feeling ignored in domesticity and grappling with her inner demons, Irawati (Saiyami Kher) takes a journey from Nanded to Hyderabad to be with her younger sister Riya who is about to deliver a baby.
8 A.M. Metro (Hindi)
Director: Raj Rachakonda
Cast: Gulshan Devaiah, Saiyami Kher, Umesh Kamat
Run-time: 116 minutes
Storyline: Dealing with private traumas, Irawati and Pritam develop a bond on their daily commute in Hyderabad
Train journeys give her panic attacks because of a pernicious memory that refuses to wane but Irawati somehow makes it to Hyderabad. There again she has to take a Metro everyday from hospital to Riya’s home to save time and money. Help comes in the form of Pritam (Gulshan Devaiah), a sedate guy in love with books. He helps Irawati who is a closet poet find herself and over a period of time the two develop a bond over conversations brewed with literature and coffee.
Gradually, we discover that Pritam is a banker whose balance sheet of life is also in doldrums. As the two strangers with kids inadvertently heal each other’s trauma, we get some heart touching moments on how grief grates one’s soul and how by indulging in phoney issues we allow life to slip away. Pritam’s belief in literature as a reference point to address the false notes we strike in everyday life is an interesting tool to put the point across.
Gulshan gets hold of the many layers that a complex character like Pritam holds within and lays them out for us, one at a time. Saiyami begins well as she captures the diminishing iridescence of a homemaker but as the film progresses, she could hardly change gears, much like the makers. Even the words of Gulzar that shape Irawati’s poetry on screen feel borrowed. Constantly trying to sound profound, the conversations get coagulated with platitudes, making long passages sound like a sanctimonious exercise on human relationships.
Drawing from Telugu author Malladi Ventaka Krishna Murthy’s novel Andamina Jeevitam, Raj could not wean the screenplay off the bookish nature of its source. There is a certain staginess to the proceedings that might have worked on the pages but on screen they feel stilted and contrived. Steeped in sadness, the narrative’s emotional swell remains adsorbed on the surface.
8 A.M. Metro is currently running in theatres.
