‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan’ Review: The Kids Are Alright

Watch the young adult movie starring Ananya Panday, Siddhant Chaturvedi and Adarsh Gourav to see what the kids are up to behind their locked bedroom doors and phones

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan

Cast: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday, Adarsh Gourav, Kalki Koechlin

Direction: Arjun Varain Singh

Rating: ***1/2

Streaming on Netflix

Every generation carries an albatross around its neck.

For my parents’ generation, it was ‘responsibility’. They had to take care of the family, get their brothers settled, sisters married. And as soon as they were done, they had their own families to take care of.

For my generation, the albatross was ‘identity’, which we had to create by being different from our parents. So we broke away from their expectations to achieve success in the few traditional vocations we knew. Even as parents, we worked hard to be different, better than them.

The albatross that Generation Z carries around is split into two — one part is loneliness, the other is insecurity.

Director Arjun Varain Singh’s Kho Gaye Hum Kahan tells the story of young, city-bred men and women who are cool, seemingly with it, but who deal with troubles in their real life by seeking validation for the simulated, perfect characters they have created for themselves online.

They think they’ll make it if they fake it.

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan is about three close friends — Ahana Singh (Ananya Pandey), Imaad Ali (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Neil Pereira (Adarsh Gourav). The secularism in their names is nice but is irrelevant to their lives or the film.

Ahana, an MBA, works in an office and is in a romantic relationship with Rohan (Rohan Gurbaxani).

Neil is a gym trainer who is in a secret relationship with an influencer. He dreams of owning a gym, having some celebrity clients and making his relationship public.

Imaad is a stand-up comedian who prefers Tinder hook-ups to any real commitment. He avoids second dates and during his therapy sessions too he jokes instead of communicating his feelings.

All is going reasonably well, so they all decide to join forces and invest in Neil’s dream. But then things start getting complicated.

Rohan decides that he needs a break from Ahana, Imaad feels a real connection forming with a photographer, Simran (Kalki Koechlin), and Neil is shown his place at the gym and in his relationship.

There are fights and flare-ups, obsessive scrolling, posting, trolling.

Ahana decides to fake happiness online. Imaad, whose stand-up jokes are not taking off, decides to turn his friend’s life into a comedy routine. And Neil creates a fake account to troll the people who he feels have wronged him.

Arjun Varain Singh’s Kho Gaye Hum Kahan — based on a script he’s written with Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti — is a sharply observed, smartly directed and nicely paced film with some fabulous performances.

For a while in the middle, the film feels like a Gen Z sequel to Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai. There are several similarities between the two films — three friends, their struggles with life, love, self. An affair with an older woman, etc.

But KGHK is its own film. It’s less filmy and tuned into the lives of Gen Z, which are built on faking swag and pretending to be cool with dispensable relationships, dispensable friends, dispensable jobs, apartments, often at the expense of their real feelings and happiness.

The film gives us a peek into their deep insecurity and loneliness, but doesn’t go beyond peeling the top thin layer. Yet the film is moving, engaging and entertaining because of the performances.

Ananya Pandey is superb. Light-footed and luminous, she holds this friend’s group and the movie together.

Adarsh Gourav carries much more of the world that Neil Pereira comes from than the others, and that makes his character feel rooted, more real.

Siddhant Chaturvedi is very attractive. He has an ambiguous smile and personality, making it difficult to know what he is thinking. He uses that to great effect as Imaad, especially in his final stand-up routine that is powerful and served with some dark humor. Because sometimes, the only way to say that you are hurting is by faking a smile.

Watch Kho Gaye Hum Kahan to see what the kids are up to behind their locked bedroom doors and phones. They seem to have it a little easier than us, or they may have it a little worse. But the kids, they are alright.

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