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Cast: Sonali Kulkarni, Ashish Vidyarthi, Ashwanth Ashokkumar & ensemble.
Creator: Mani Prasad.
Director: VK Prakash.
Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video.
Language: Hindi (with subtitles).
Runtime: 8 Episodes Around 30 Minutes Each.
Half Pants Full Pants Review: What’s It About:
Anand (Ashwanth), a dreamer stays in the railway colony in Shimoga with his conservative Brahmin parents. While they try to teach him the simple way of living by being content with what you have, Anand tries to achieve and aspire to things that are beyond his limit but he has the best to make it happen.
Half Pants Full Pants Review: What Works:
I grew up in the era when Sony was a channel known for its 8:00 Am Malgudi Days telecast every Sunday. A show so heartwarming and a setup so relatable that there was never a bad day after you have seen an episode. That show evoked a culture and became a cult empowering more like it because makers realised there still is demand. The effect of that game changer can be still felt every time a filmmaker decides to highlight the breezy life of any Heartland Village. Be it Panchayat, or the latest Half Pants Full Pants.
The latter falls very close to the tree that houses Malgudi Days. Just like the predecessor, it is about a small boy spending his life in a fictional village in the south of India trying to highlight as many things he can about his social footprint. Adapted from Anand Suspi’s autobiographical book by the same name, the show is written by Anand with VK Prakash and Gaurav Mishra. Together the three men set the base for this world pretty right. It is India under Rajeev Gandhi. 50 Paise is still a thing and trains run on coal with a very less frequency. The people living in a railway colony are right in the center of elitism and the lower middle class. And in that is a family led by a man who believes in living a simple life with no aspiration to grow.
The premise is very heartening and there is so much to hook our hopes to. All of this is seen by Anand who is our window into this world. For him, nothing is impossible and every unique thing he sees is the talent he wants to have now. He is all of us with dreams and a child-like ambition to touch the moon one day. He tries and fails multiple times but never really stops even when a father with no ambition pulls him back again and again. There is a chirp of childhood, a nostalgia factor, and even the leverage to mend things emotionally.
Credit where it’s due, some scenes like Anand worshipping Bruce Lee, his father telling his falsely glorified stories about bravery at work for his kids to look at him as hero, the celebration that a new uniform brought with it, is where the heart in this show lies.
The visuals are good and the world looks lived-in so it does add a good layer.
Half Pants Full Pants Review: Star Performance:
Ashwanth Ashokkumar as Anand is adorable. He looks like he is living his own life and not acting. The child is either gifted or too hard working to have this effortless demeanour in front of the camera.
Ashish Vidyarthi plays a version of many of his characters but does it nicely. Sonali Kulkarni brings the stillness needed in the show and has an amazing screen presence.
Half Pants Full Pants Review: What Doesn’t Work:
The makers also choose to keep everything surface-level without really delving deeper into the psyche of childhood. For example how Avinash Arun’s Marathi classic Killa captures the essence of being a child and one from a different setup than others in an alien land. There is so much tenderness yet maturity in how that story is handled. But in Half Pants Full Pants makers make everything look easy. A government school kid enters a convent and there is no visible friction amongst the students considering the hating class divide of the time this show is set in.
Even the friendships between the children are worth investing time into. But the show even just touches that never to be explored completely. A chapter begins in Anand’s life and ends without a connecting wire that runs through every chapter. He is a different kid with a mind that runs faster than the rest, he is punished for it at one point, but when he is appreciated, the moment should be built to generate applause but it is just a blink and miss.
Also, whoever thought that the kids in the 70s’ and 80s’ spoke fluent English in government schools needs to reassess. The background music could have been better.
Half Pants Full Pants Review: Last Words:
It sets out to be a heart-warming watch but losses its way in the middle. Could have been a show we rejoiced about, but ended up being a surface-level adaptation.
For more, read our Tanaav Review here.
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