3 Idiots, the story of three friends at the top Indian engineering college, is the highest-grossing Bollywood movie in India of all time. It uses the conventions of the typical Bollywood genre while expanding and twisting them into a wonderful tale teetering between broad comedy, tragedy, and just plain silliness.
The pressures to succeed at the college are intense, with the emphasis on rote memory, scoring high on exams, and following the rules to the letter. The love of learning, science or engineering is considered heretical and anti-productive. Students struggle, some contemplate suicide while other actually do. The toll on all the students is apparent, but harshest on those who have commitments to care for their families when their studies are complete. Get a degree, get a job, support your elders. That’s the pattern.
Told in a flashback, the film is framed by the story of two of the friends, now successful in their chosen fields, who are looking for Rancho, played by the delightful Aamir Khan. He was the only student who seems to be able to combine his genius for engineering with his delight in learning. He mysteriously disappeared on graduation day and no trace of him can be found. When, at last, the friends think they’ve found him, it turns out Rancho isn’t Rancho.
But all ends well, of course, and it’s well worth watching.
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