SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON

A film to love, to cry over (a bit), to smile along with, to tell your friends about.

It’s streaming on Prime. In English or Hindi, with subtitles. It may be the sweetest movie I’ve seen in a long time.

Director: Reema Kagti

Release date: February 28, 2025 (USA)

Producers: Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar

It’s based on real-life. About a group of small-town film lovers, a handful of young men who watch Buster Keaton and Bruce Lee films alongside Bollywood blockbusters, while yearning to make their own films.

So that’s what they do. Using a hand-held camera, a bicycle for a dolly and a curtained-off auto rickshaw as a make-up room.

There’s a 2012 documentary film called Supermen of Malegaon, on which this fictional film is based.

It has the texture of a fable, set in an Olde Worlde small town in Maharashtra. I watched it with English VO (which totally doesn’t match the English subtitles!) and was instantly charmed by the homespun sophistication – yes, both together – of the film-making.

It’s sweet without being sticky. The comedy has hang-dog elements, like silent-era Chaplin/Keaton films. The stunts are filmed with deadpan irony.

Go on. Go watch it. Tell me if you didn’t cry.