The President is Coming is an Indian satirical mockumentary made by Kunaal Roy Kapur, and follows one simple plot - Who will be the young Indian who will shake hands with Mr. George Bush on his upcoming trip to India?
The story is based on George Bush’s India visit in 2006, and a nice mockumentary is made just to show what we Indians did during that time. Through 6 different characters, Kunaal showed that how does we Indians was pressed by US governments and also we forgot our own characteristics. If you remember, during that visit, there were many security arrangements done by Preident’s personal security team. There was much hype related with that trip like food preparation, arrangements was guided purely by President Bush’s administration. We Indians being on recieving side, always supported the rules they applied (although its not US but India) but only because we care and we treat every guest as "Athithi Devo Bhava", but still that trip raises many questions in our mind that being the biggest democracy in the world, do we have our self-respect or not.
This was shown in a comical way through this english-hindi dramatic documentary. There are 6 characters, Maya Roy, a young novelist from Bengal (Konkona Sen Sharma), Ritu Johnson, young enterpreneur (Shivani Tanksale), Kapil Dev, young stock broker (Anand Tiwari), Ramesh S, the young programmer from Bangalore (Namit Das), Rohit Seth, a young Accent teacher from Gurgaon (Vivek Gomber) and Mr. Ajay Karlekar from Maharashtra (Satchit Puranik). All these were shortlisted for the event "Young Indian handshake with Mr. Bush", and then a reality show started conducted and judged by Samantha Patel, a PR (Shernaz Patel) and Archana Kapoor, another assistant PR (Ira Dubey). They have several rounds during which many secrets revealed like Samantha is a thief stealing US consulate things and Ramesh being the gay person. Also this reality show reveals the corruption through Kapil, and the casteism through Ajay. It reveals some other aspects and secrets of the characters who are Indian but in what things they are indulged.
The best thing in this film is the way in which it is shot. As already told, this is a documentary kind of film, it shows the accurate emotions shared by all characters of the movie. There is nothing called acting (or overacting), as it just look like we are seeing the daily life emotions and expressions of people. This movie will not liked by the audience who liked watching Masala kind of movies, but one who likes a true soul type of movie will certainly appreciate this movie. Movie has many comic incidences and many situations which will let the audience (the Indian) to rethink their ways, like what they did earlier, and what they need to improve. But no message is given in the film directly, although the director Kunaal Roy and the writer Anuvab Pal successfully able to deliever the messages in a sarcastic way.
Now, after seeing this movie I can say that many new ideas are coming in the way, the pattern started by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (RDB fame) is seem to be continuing by many young generation directors like Rajkumar Gupta (Aamir fame), Neeraj Pandey (A wednesday fame) and now by Kunal Roy Kapoor. They are putting their efforts, now its our chance to stand up to their expectations and become a true Indian.
I can only say Bravo Sir!!
Ruchir.