February 22, 2025 • 13 mins
Two friends are searching for their long lost companion. They revisit their college days and recall the memories of their friend who inspired them to think differently, even as the rest of the world called them "idiots".
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This weekend I watched my first Bollywood movie, Three Idiots.
(00:03):
So let's talk about it.
Three Idiots tells the story of two college students whose life has changed forever when
they meet a new friend with a positive and uplifting outlook on life.
Ten years after graduating, the two friends set out to track down their inspiring friend
who seems to have disappeared.
(00:24):
Over the last couple of years, I almost daily receive a tweet or a DM from someone asking
for my take on Bollywood.
Unfortunately, I'd never seen a Bollywood film before.
I'd seen at least one movie from India, Jalikattu, but my understanding it's from Mollywood,
the southern part of India, rather than from Bollywood.
(00:45):
And so I didn't really have a satisfying answer as I'd never really seen any of them.
And even though they play at the local theaters where I live, I just never really knew where
to start or which movie to watch as a good entry point.
But the one movie that people recommended consistently in these conversations was Three
Idiots.
And finally, I've been able to watch it, my wife, and I sat down and took us two nights
(01:09):
because it's a long movie.
And we kind of split it up right at the middle where they have the revelation about Rancho
and kind of the future and the confusion about him.
And then we watched the second half last night.
But I've now watched it.
With that in mind, if you've seen the movie, let me know down below in the comment section.
Did you love it?
Did you hate it?
Is it overrated or is it just as good as the praise that it received?
(01:31):
Especially if you're from India, my understanding is that this movie had a bit of a cultural
impact.
And if you can kind of speak to that a little bit so that I can understand a little bit
more, I would greatly appreciate that.
Even on Twitter, I've had some people already share some sort of personal stories about how
this movie kind of affected their family dynamic because of its message.
(01:52):
I would love it if you would chime in on that.
And with that said, let's get started talking about the good.
So I went into this movie knowing essentially nothing about it at all because the title
is The Three Idiots and it's listed as a comedy.
I just kind of assumed it was going to be like a Three Stooges slapstick comedy from
Bollywood.
(02:13):
And it's really not like that at all.
That does not at all give you an idea of what this film is.
Now there is plenty of lighthearted slapstick humor, but the movie is much more a coming
of age story and a drama that has a lot of comedy and a little bit of music thrown into
the mix.
And for me, it worked much better as a coming of age story and in presenting its ideas through
(02:37):
story.
That's what connected with me a little bit more, which was pretty interesting to me because
the film is just so saturated and soaked in Indian culture and societal expectations and
the education system that in many ways it should be a little bit unrelatable to me because
the American system is quite different and the way we relate to parents and the individualism
(03:01):
is quite different.
But the movie itself presents its ideas in its story so clearly that it becomes a very
relatable message about pursuing your passions.
As much as I really don't know what the education and college system is like in India, it didn't
(03:21):
in any way hinder my ability to appreciate and connect with this movie and these characters.
And I think a lot of that is due to the fact that the movie lacks all subtlety.
Nothing is just kind of casually there or lightly touched on.
Everything is presented front and center with very big emotions, very clear cut scenarios.
(03:43):
The characters in many ways are kind of stereotypes.
The drama is played out as melodrama.
And when I would talk about most movies, I would say those are criticisms.
But in the context of this film, it's all played so earnestly and while it's very
lighthearted, it takes its message entirely seriously and it does whatever it needs to
(04:06):
do to put it front and center so you get it.
And because of that, I think the movie is a lot more universally accessible than it otherwise
would have been and it works on its own terms.
And because nothing is subtle and all the emotions are cranked up to ten, the movie
goes back and forth between big gigantic emotions and when it's happy, it's a party
(04:30):
and it will literally go from a party straight to a funeral pretty close to literally at
one point in time.
And what at first happened is really jarring because you don't find a lot of that in Hollywood
movies or American television.
But you quickly realize it's not a mistake.
It's not like they misread the situation or put something in there that they didn't
(04:52):
mean to put in.
That's the effect that they're going for.
All of the human experience, all of these emotions, all of them front and center and
it's the style that they chose.
It's very different from the style that stories are told in America.
It's very different from the way that tone is treated in America but that doesn't make
(05:13):
it good or bad.
It's just different.
And finally, you get very invested in all of the characters.
Even the characters you're not supposed to like, you're interested in the little journey
that they're on.
And as I mentioned before, all the characters are sort of stereotypes.
They represent a specific way of thinking and they're presented very much so it would
(05:34):
be a clear cut example of that.
Not that they lack nuance.
They do have little details about them but they're designed to fit into just a person
that you know.
Which once again is interesting because it's a story from the other side of the world from
where I was raised.
But you still know people exactly like all of the different examples in the movie and
(05:56):
while the way it plays out is different, the specific cultural context is different, people
are people and we all have the same experiences and this movie puts those experiences front
and center.
And part of what makes them so relatable and likable is that almost everyone is given
a character arc.
(06:17):
They have a journey that their character is on throughout the film, at some point in time
they have to make big bold choices that represent a change in the trajectory of their life and
they learn through what has happened throughout the entire film.
And once again, since there's no subtlety, since everything's cranked up to 11 and everything
(06:39):
is set up with melodrama, all of these scenarios, all the moments when it plays out have big,
big emotions.
And in the last 45 minutes they're all like these just uplifting scenarios that are just
going from like people fighting to these moments of like they get it and it comes together.
And so it's just back and forth and all these huge roller coaster rides of emotions.
(07:02):
And even kind of the villain of the movie, the headmaster virus, they give him a journey
throughout the film and you learn things about him as to why he is the way that he is and
why he's closed off and can't accept responsibility for certain sorts of things and you learn it
and reveal things and so you even care about him and the journey that he's on.
(07:22):
And oddly enough, the central character Rancho who's the person that kind of enlightens
everyone and is the catalyst for change, in many ways he's the least relatable character
in the film because he's designed to take all these other people that are examples of
people that you know and help them to be the better version of themselves and in doing
so he seems a little bit more like a plot device in a certain sense.
(07:47):
And I don't even say that in a negative sense, he's just designed to be that way in it.
He's designed to be very likable and energetic.
But he's like the least relatable in this other sense.
So as we were watching through it, my wife literally started crying when it came to the
part where they have to save a person in the middle of the rain and they're stuck at the
school with the power out.
(08:08):
It plays the emotion so well that my wife was getting very emotional.
So was I.
And a lot of that even comes from the fact that because it just had these big gigantic
sparks and emotion and you know that the movie has done some really dark stuff, you know
that it's not afraid to have something terrible happen in a situation, you feel the tension.
(08:31):
And so when you have the final release of victory in the finale, you feel all of those
emotions and you absolutely care about the characters, the choices they make and the
victories they experience and it all pays off.
But with that said, let's move on to the mixed aspects of the film.
(08:52):
I'll tell you right now, I'm not going to do a bad side for this movie.
It's not that I didn't necessarily have bad things to say, but since I've never watched
a Bollywood movie before, it's a little bit difficult to sort through exactly what I'm
experiencing watching a movie.
It's like eating a type of food for the very first time.
(09:13):
You know if you like it or not, but you can't pinpoint what exactly is good or bad cooking
with this type of food because you've never had it before.
You just know if you tend to like something like that.
And so I'll talk about mixed things that kind of stood out to me, things that were a little
bit odd, but I don't want to necessarily say that's bad because it's just different.
First one that comes to mind is that it took me about 30 minutes to fully kind of connect
(09:37):
with what was going on in the movie.
And so I didn't necessarily dislike it.
I was like, okay, this is energetic and this guy seems likable.
But I didn't feel like I was on board with the story hooked until the sequence where
I guess is they're going through the song all as well.
It's like a party and there's a drone.
It flies up and it reveals something and it's the first gigantic tonal shift in the movie.
(10:01):
And up until that point in time, I was like, okay, cool.
This is this has a lot of stuff going on inside of it.
And then that moment happened and that's where you really understand what the movie's about.
And it was about 30 minutes into it.
And so it took a little bit for me to kind of kind of connect with it.
And along those same lines, the movie's length is a lot.
(10:23):
We legitimately had to watch it in two different sections.
In both times we watched it.
It was an hour and 20 minutes that we sat down and watched.
It was like the length of a full movie, except there was two of them.
If you made this movie in the United States, it would be an hour shorter.
It would be an hour and 40 minutes long.
And so in a movie that's almost three hours long, that's like a college coming of age
story.
(10:44):
It's a lot.
It's a lot for someone used to the pacing style, length of storytelling that you are
in the United States.
Next one on here is the tonal shift.
As I mentioned before, I think it works.
It works in and of itself.
But if you're new to Bollywood, when this drone sequence happens and this drone flies
(11:04):
up, I mean, it's the most jarring tonal shift I think I've ever seen in a movie of just like,
yeah.
Whoa.
Whoa, we're going somewhere different than I thought we were going with this.
And there's a couple of those in the movie.
I've just like, fun, fun, fun.
Whoa, we're going the opposite direction.
And it's designed to be that.
(11:25):
And so it's tough for me to say that's a bad thing when it's just a different way of telling
stories and treating these things.
You just, you don't do that in Hollywood movies.
That doesn't mean you can't do that in a movie and you can't feel consistent doing it.
And I would say that this felt consistent with the movie that they were making.
And then kind of the last one on here that kind of immediately came to mind is that there's
a lot of peeing in the movie, which might seem like an odd criticism, but there's like
(11:49):
numerous sequences where people are peeing on walls, sitting on toilets, talking to each
other, plot lines about people peeing under doors.
It's just a lot more bodily function stuff that you normally find once again in Hollywood
movies that just stuck out to me.
It's like, okay, this is a little bit weird.
My wife showed us like, man, there are so many sequences of people peeing on things
(12:10):
inside of this movie.
Before I give you my final thoughts on this one, be sure to tell me what you thought down
below in the comment section.
Once again, as I mentioned, I've limited perspective on this film as an American.
And so if you're from India and kind of give some of the context of the impact that this
movie had maybe in the culture or for you specifically, I would love to hear those stories down below
(12:34):
in the comment section.
Overall, it was a very pleasant surprise for me because once again, I didn't know what
I was getting in for.
I just assumed it was going to be a slapstick comedy that was probably going to have some
musical numbers.
And it's really a whole lot more than that in a much more satisfying film than that,
that has a message it wants to communicate, but it communicates it through story.
(12:56):
And while a lot of elements were very strange, different, not the way I'm used to watching
movies, it doesn't mean that it wasn't a movie that worked for me.
I can't give this movie a score once again because it's the first time I've experienced
something like this.
I don't think I could give it a letter grade or an entertainment score because I just don't
have a point of comparison to even know where to begin to do something like that.
(13:17):
But what I would say is that I would highly recommend this film.
And if you're someone like me, an American or from Europe and you haven't checked out
any Bollywood films, this really probably is a very good entry point that it's very
different, but there's a lot of things that you can connect with.
But you'll probably have to sit and watch it in a couple of sittings because it is rather
(13:38):
long.
With that said, if you know, if you've seen the movie, let me know what you thought about
it down below in the comments section.
Thank you so much for watching.
And if you've got some Bollywood recommendations, let me know down below in the comments section
and keep talking movies too much.
This weekend I watched my first Bollywood movie, Three Idiots.
(00:03):
So let's talk about it.
Three Idiots tells the story of two college students whose life has changed forever when
they meet a new friend with a positive and uplifting outlook on life.
Ten years after graduating, the two friends set out to track down their inspiring friend
who seems to have disappeared.
(00:24):
Over the last couple of years, I almost daily receive a tweet or a DM from someone asking
for my take on Bollywood.
Unfortunately, I'd never seen a Bollywood film before.
I'd seen at least one movie from India, Jalikattu, but my understanding it's from Mollywood,
the southern part of India, rather than from Bollywood.
(00:45):
And so I didn't really have a satisfying answer as I'd never really seen any of them.
And even though they play at the local theaters where I live, I just never really knew where
to start or which movie to watch as a good entry point.
But the one movie that people recommended consistently in these conversations was Three
Idiots.
And finally, I've been able to watch it, my wife, and I sat down and took us two nights
(01:09):
because it's a long movie.
And we kind of split it up right at the middle where they have the revelation about Rancho
and kind of the future and the confusion about him.
And then we watched the second half last night.
But I've now watched it.
With that in mind, if you've seen the movie, let me know down below in the comment section.
Did you love it?
Did you hate it?
Is it overrated or is it just as good as the praise that it received?
(01:31):
Especially if you're from India, my understanding is that this movie had a bit of a cultural
impact.
And if you can kind of speak to that a little bit so that I can understand a little bit
more, I would greatly appreciate that.
Even on Twitter, I've had some people already share some sort of personal stories about how
this movie kind of affected their family dynamic because of its message.
(01:52):
I would love it if you would chime in on that.
And with that said, let's get started talking about the good.
So I went into this movie knowing essentially nothing about it at all because the title
is The Three Idiots and it's listed as a comedy.
I just kind of assumed it was going to be like a Three Stooges slapstick comedy from
Bollywood.
(02:13):
And it's really not like that at all.
That does not at all give you an idea of what this film is.
Now there is plenty of lighthearted slapstick humor, but the movie is much more a coming
of age story and a drama that has a lot of comedy and a little bit of music thrown into
the mix.
And for me, it worked much better as a coming of age story and in presenting its ideas through
(02:37):
story.
That's what connected with me a little bit more, which was pretty interesting to me because
the film is just so saturated and soaked in Indian culture and societal expectations and
the education system that in many ways it should be a little bit unrelatable to me because
the American system is quite different and the way we relate to parents and the individualism
(03:01):
is quite different.
But the movie itself presents its ideas in its story so clearly that it becomes a very
relatable message about pursuing your passions.
As much as I really don't know what the education and college system is like in India, it didn't
(03:21):
in any way hinder my ability to appreciate and connect with this movie and these characters.
And I think a lot of that is due to the fact that the movie lacks all subtlety.
Nothing is just kind of casually there or lightly touched on.
Everything is presented front and center with very big emotions, very clear cut scenarios.
(03:43):
The characters in many ways are kind of stereotypes.
The drama is played out as melodrama.
And when I would talk about most movies, I would say those are criticisms.
But in the context of this film, it's all played so earnestly and while it's very
lighthearted, it takes its message entirely seriously and it does whatever it needs to
(04:06):
do to put it front and center so you get it.
And because of that, I think the movie is a lot more universally accessible than it otherwise
would have been and it works on its own terms.
And because nothing is subtle and all the emotions are cranked up to ten, the movie
goes back and forth between big gigantic emotions and when it's happy, it's a party
(04:30):
and it will literally go from a party straight to a funeral pretty close to literally at
one point in time.
And what at first happened is really jarring because you don't find a lot of that in Hollywood
movies or American television.
But you quickly realize it's not a mistake.
It's not like they misread the situation or put something in there that they didn't
(04:52):
mean to put in.
That's the effect that they're going for.
All of the human experience, all of these emotions, all of them front and center and
it's the style that they chose.
It's very different from the style that stories are told in America.
It's very different from the way that tone is treated in America but that doesn't make
(05:13):
it good or bad.
It's just different.
And finally, you get very invested in all of the characters.
Even the characters you're not supposed to like, you're interested in the little journey
that they're on.
And as I mentioned before, all the characters are sort of stereotypes.
They represent a specific way of thinking and they're presented very much so it would
(05:34):
be a clear cut example of that.
Not that they lack nuance.
They do have little details about them but they're designed to fit into just a person
that you know.
Which once again is interesting because it's a story from the other side of the world from
where I was raised.
But you still know people exactly like all of the different examples in the movie and
(05:56):
while the way it plays out is different, the specific cultural context is different, people
are people and we all have the same experiences and this movie puts those experiences front
and center.
And part of what makes them so relatable and likable is that almost everyone is given
a character arc.
(06:17):
They have a journey that their character is on throughout the film, at some point in time
they have to make big bold choices that represent a change in the trajectory of their life and
they learn through what has happened throughout the entire film.
And once again, since there's no subtlety, since everything's cranked up to 11 and everything
(06:39):
is set up with melodrama, all of these scenarios, all the moments when it plays out have big,
big emotions.
And in the last 45 minutes they're all like these just uplifting scenarios that are just
going from like people fighting to these moments of like they get it and it comes together.
And so it's just back and forth and all these huge roller coaster rides of emotions.
(07:02):
And even kind of the villain of the movie, the headmaster virus, they give him a journey
throughout the film and you learn things about him as to why he is the way that he is and
why he's closed off and can't accept responsibility for certain sorts of things and you learn it
and reveal things and so you even care about him and the journey that he's on.
(07:22):
And oddly enough, the central character Rancho who's the person that kind of enlightens
everyone and is the catalyst for change, in many ways he's the least relatable character
in the film because he's designed to take all these other people that are examples of
people that you know and help them to be the better version of themselves and in doing
so he seems a little bit more like a plot device in a certain sense.
(07:47):
And I don't even say that in a negative sense, he's just designed to be that way in it.
He's designed to be very likable and energetic.
But he's like the least relatable in this other sense.
So as we were watching through it, my wife literally started crying when it came to the
part where they have to save a person in the middle of the rain and they're stuck at the
school with the power out.
(08:08):
It plays the emotion so well that my wife was getting very emotional.
So was I.
And a lot of that even comes from the fact that because it just had these big gigantic
sparks and emotion and you know that the movie has done some really dark stuff, you know
that it's not afraid to have something terrible happen in a situation, you feel the tension.
(08:31):
And so when you have the final release of victory in the finale, you feel all of those
emotions and you absolutely care about the characters, the choices they make and the
victories they experience and it all pays off.
But with that said, let's move on to the mixed aspects of the film.
(08:52):
I'll tell you right now, I'm not going to do a bad side for this movie.
It's not that I didn't necessarily have bad things to say, but since I've never watched
a Bollywood movie before, it's a little bit difficult to sort through exactly what I'm
experiencing watching a movie.
It's like eating a type of food for the very first time.
(09:13):
You know if you like it or not, but you can't pinpoint what exactly is good or bad cooking
with this type of food because you've never had it before.
You just know if you tend to like something like that.
And so I'll talk about mixed things that kind of stood out to me, things that were a little
bit odd, but I don't want to necessarily say that's bad because it's just different.
First one that comes to mind is that it took me about 30 minutes to fully kind of connect
(09:37):
with what was going on in the movie.
And so I didn't necessarily dislike it.
I was like, okay, this is energetic and this guy seems likable.
But I didn't feel like I was on board with the story hooked until the sequence where
I guess is they're going through the song all as well.
It's like a party and there's a drone.
It flies up and it reveals something and it's the first gigantic tonal shift in the movie.
(10:01):
And up until that point in time, I was like, okay, cool.
This is this has a lot of stuff going on inside of it.
And then that moment happened and that's where you really understand what the movie's about.
And it was about 30 minutes into it.
And so it took a little bit for me to kind of kind of connect with it.
And along those same lines, the movie's length is a lot.
(10:23):
We legitimately had to watch it in two different sections.
In both times we watched it.
It was an hour and 20 minutes that we sat down and watched.
It was like the length of a full movie, except there was two of them.
If you made this movie in the United States, it would be an hour shorter.
It would be an hour and 40 minutes long.
And so in a movie that's almost three hours long, that's like a college coming of age
story.
(10:44):
It's a lot.
It's a lot for someone used to the pacing style, length of storytelling that you are
in the United States.
Next one on here is the tonal shift.
As I mentioned before, I think it works.
It works in and of itself.
But if you're new to Bollywood, when this drone sequence happens and this drone flies
(11:04):
up, I mean, it's the most jarring tonal shift I think I've ever seen in a movie of just like,
yeah.
Whoa.
Whoa, we're going somewhere different than I thought we were going with this.
And there's a couple of those in the movie.
I've just like, fun, fun, fun.
Whoa, we're going the opposite direction.
And it's designed to be that.
(11:25):
And so it's tough for me to say that's a bad thing when it's just a different way of telling
stories and treating these things.
You just, you don't do that in Hollywood movies.
That doesn't mean you can't do that in a movie and you can't feel consistent doing it.
And I would say that this felt consistent with the movie that they were making.
And then kind of the last one on here that kind of immediately came to mind is that there's
a lot of peeing in the movie, which might seem like an odd criticism, but there's like
(11:49):
numerous sequences where people are peeing on walls, sitting on toilets, talking to each
other, plot lines about people peeing under doors.
It's just a lot more bodily function stuff that you normally find once again in Hollywood
movies that just stuck out to me.
It's like, okay, this is a little bit weird.
My wife showed us like, man, there are so many sequences of people peeing on things
(12:10):
inside of this movie.
Before I give you my final thoughts on this one, be sure to tell me what you thought down
below in the comment section.
Once again, as I mentioned, I've limited perspective on this film as an American.
And so if you're from India and kind of give some of the context of the impact that this
movie had maybe in the culture or for you specifically, I would love to hear those stories down below
(12:34):
in the comment section.
Overall, it was a very pleasant surprise for me because once again, I didn't know what
I was getting in for.
I just assumed it was going to be a slapstick comedy that was probably going to have some
musical numbers.
And it's really a whole lot more than that in a much more satisfying film than that,
that has a message it wants to communicate, but it communicates it through story.
(12:56):
And while a lot of elements were very strange, different, not the way I'm used to watching
movies, it doesn't mean that it wasn't a movie that worked for me.
I can't give this movie a score once again because it's the first time I've experienced
something like this.
I don't think I could give it a letter grade or an entertainment score because I just don't
have a point of comparison to even know where to begin to do something like that.
(13:17):
But what I would say is that I would highly recommend this film.
And if you're someone like me, an American or from Europe and you haven't checked out
any Bollywood films, this really probably is a very good entry point that it's very
different, but there's a lot of things that you can connect with.
But you'll probably have to sit and watch it in a couple of sittings because it is rather
(13:38):
long.
With that said, if you know, if you've seen the movie, let me know what you thought about
it down below in the comments section.
Thank you so much for watching.
And if you've got some Bollywood recommendations, let me know down below in the comments section
and keep talking movies too much.
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