All India Rank review: Varun Grover’s film is too lyrical for a survival drama

There are long, picturesque shots of Vivek hanging out with his friends at a serene lake, looking at the train for Lucknow leave the railway station platform whenever he’s homesick or getting to know the girl he’s infatuated with on languorous cycle rides. Grover wants to establish Kota as a hellhole of raging hormones and harrowing competition. But his version is just too pretty, too poetic, making it impossible to for you buy into. All India Rank is too lyrical for a survival drama.

However, Bodhisattva is a fascinating choice for Vivek. His earnestness and raw potential will remind you of young Rajkummar Rao. Ah, the possibilities. But the film’s intention is constantly at odds with its pace, projection, and execution. TVF’s Kota Factory (2019), the first season of Biswa Kalyan Rath’s Prime Video series Laakhon Mein Ek (2017), and most recently, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12^th Fail (2023) have set the bar high for such stories of strife. All India Rank just doesn’t match up. It’s too bland, too late. This is why even at 101 minutes, it feels a tad too stretched.

But the film does get right the middle-class angst and the vying for upward mobility at a time (late 1990s) when India was waking up to the wonders of the new economic policy and, for the first time, feeling the heat of consumerism. The one aspect that stood out for me in All India Rank is the track of Vivek’s parents RK Singh (Shashi Bhushan) and Manju (Geeta Agrawal Sharma). What’s usually a footnote in such stories is half the book here.

I loved how Grover beautifully juxtaposes their challenges with those of Vivek. RK is utterly dispensable and often cornered at his government job. The more he is made to feel small, the greater the rigor with which he forces the burden of his failures on Vivek. Meanwhile, Manju runs a telephone booth and has a crippling affinity for sweets. She is battling a crisis of her own. A lewd teenager who frequents her store begins to threaten her with physical violence on being called out.

There is this one scene, in which RK tries to make Manju laugh by imitating Shaktiman for her. Its emotional heft and the simplicity with which it is performed will make your heart melt. It’s both funny and sad in the way it makes you realize the haplessness of middle-class existence. In the garb of the IIT aspirant story, All India Rank is a nuanced exploration of the trials and triumphs of the parents of these students. It’s a wonderful cross-generational examination, the way I’d hoped Bunty Aur Babli 2 (2021) would be, the way Badhaai Ho (2018) was.