We are in a world where a family can own smartphones, yet live under a kutcha roof. And the irony is that we, the audience in air-conditioned theatres, know that world is real. Throughout Homebound, this stark contrast—between the viewer and the viewed, and within the film's world itself—is haunting, daunting, touching, upsetting, heartbreaking and a little warm too.

Homebound is a reminder of how films don't need to get into histrionics to be engaging and thought-provoking.

How can the suffocating circumstances of Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) as a Muslim in India and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa) as a person from a scheduled caste be warm, you ask? Because the filmmakers make you feel for them without making you feel sorry for them or their situation.

This could also be because the characters are all representatives of the groups they belong to, making them, especially Shoaib and Chandan, two-dimensional placeholders. The situations too are dictated by the single identities—a Muslim man and a man belonging to a scheduled caste. Each scene is charged with the looming implication of how other characters are going to respond to their identities. That makes the film a tad predictable. It doesn't help that the film is quiet but not subtle about laying out the facts as they are. I wouldn’t fault the makers for refusing subtlety, given what we’ve become as a society.

Indeed, the predictability made me very aware of my privilege, the dire situation of these groups, and the sorry state of society that we live in. Why can I tell that some of the characters are likely to react to Shoaib and Chandan?

While I can take refuge under the protection offered by some deeply affecting performances by Vishal Jethwa, Ishaan Khatter and the entire ensemble, the truth is that these societal issues are glaring us in the face day in and day out. Making me, as a part of the audience, constantly aware of them is the film's win—taking nothing away from how lived-in and rooted the entire cast looked and felt. I wish Janhvi Kapoor had a bigger role she could dig her teeth into. Though from the trailers, it looks like some of her scenes with Jethwa and Khatter didn't make the final cut.

Once you get over the "representative" nature of the characters, which results in the broad predictability of the storyline—and even if you don't get over it completely—you care for the boys. You don't want them to constantly have to temper their aspirations, which would be truly humble goals in an ideal society. But real life has it otherwise. You want them to make it.

Other than that, the film is gracefully and elegantly framed and shot with a couple of beautifully heartbreaking aerial shots. Some of the dialogue might be slightly overwritten, but it stops right in time to not become jarring.

Because the filmmakers make you feel for them without making you feel sorry for them or their situation.

Homebound is a reminder of how films don't need to get into histrionics to be engaging and thought-provoking. Just a matter-of-fact narration and execution is enough. More power to the makers—directors, producers, and writers.

- meeta, a part of the audience