Homebound (2025): Dignity, Displacement, and the Illusion of Belonging
This blog is written as part of an academic task assigned by Barad Sir for our Film Studies / Sociology of Media course. Based on a detailed worksheet provided for the film Homebound (2025), the blog engages with the film as an academic text by analyzing its narrative, characters, cinematic techniques, and the social issues it represents, with the aim of developing critical thinking and understanding how cinema reflects and questions lived social realities.
Introduction
Homebound, directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, is a socially grounded film that explores questions of dignity, belonging, and citizenship against the backdrop of contemporary India. Set around the COVID-19 lockdown, the film follows two young men whose aspirations for stability and respect collide with entrenched structures of caste, religion, and institutional indifference. Rather than presenting dramatic spectacle, Homebound adopts a realist mode, focusing on everyday gestures, silences, and bodies in motion to reveal how systemic inequality operates in ordinary life.
This blog approaches Homebound as an academic text, reading it not only as a story of physical migration during the pandemic, but also as a metaphorical journey toward acceptance that ultimately remains incomplete. By engaging with the film’s narrative structure, character arcs, and cinematic language, the discussion aims to understand how Homebound exposes the gap between constitutional promises and lived realities, and how cinema can become a powerful medium for questioning social apathy and denied dignity.
PART I: PRE-SCREENING CONTEXT & ADAPTATION
1. Source Material Analysis
Homebound is adapted from Basharat Peer’s 2020 New York Times essay about Amrit Kumar and Mohammad Saiyub, two migrant textile workers caught in the sudden lockdown exodus. In the original article, the narrative centers on their labouring lives, survival struggles, and the collapse of economic security when the pandemic hit.
In the film, director Neeraj Ghaywan fictionalizes these figures as Chandan and Shoaib, but importantly reframes them as aspiring police constables instead of textile workers. This shift is not superficial—it recalibrates the film’s core inquiry from mere economic precarity to the politics of ambition and institutional dignity.
Why this matters:
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In the essay, dignity is threatened by market collapse and employer exploitation.
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In the film, dignity is imagined as something that can be earned through entry into a state institution—the police.
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The uniform symbolizes not just a job, but social respect, safety, and hope for legitimacy in a society that otherwise marginalizes them.
Thus, the film moves beyond documenting hardship to questioning why institutional membership is seen as the only path to dignity for the marginalized—a commentary absent from the original reportage’s narrower focus on labour conditions.
2. Production Context: The Scorsese Influence
The film lists Martin Scorsese as an Executive Producer, and this collaboration significantly shapes its aesthetic and narrative sensibility.
How Scorsese’s influence shows:
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A realist tone that avoids melodrama and relies on naturalistic performances.
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Observational editing—long takes that create space for silence and emotional restraint.
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An avoidance of overt musical cues, letting the world of the film feel unfiltered.
This style aligns Homebound with international art cinema traditions, which helped its warm reception at festivals like Cannes Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. Western cinephile audiences often appreciate this kind of disciplined realism.
However, for many domestic Indian viewers, the lack of dramatic closure and overt emotional cues posed a challenge. In mainstream Indian cinema, emotional arcs are often more pronounced, and audiences are conditioned toward a narrative rhythm that Homebound intentionally resists. The result is a film that is critically acclaimed globally but harder for some home audiences to digest emotionally.
PART II: NARRATIVE STRUCTURE & THEMATIC STUDY
3. The Politics of the “Uniform”
In the first half of Homebound, the narrative closely follows Chandan and Shoaib as they prepare for the police entrance examination. For both protagonists, the police uniform represents far more than employment—it symbolizes social mobility, respectability, and protection. In a society where caste and religion determine everyday treatment, the uniform promises visibility without vulnerability.
Chandan and Shoaib believe that the state institution of the police operates on fairness and merit. However, the film deliberately exposes the fragility of this belief by foregrounding the sheer imbalance of opportunity: 2.5 million applicants competing for only 3,500 seats. This statistic is not merely informational; it becomes a narrative device that reveals how meritocracy often functions as an illusion. The film suggests that ambition is encouraged among the marginalized, but structural bottlenecks ensure that very few can ever succeed. In doing so, Homebound critiques how hope itself becomes a form of quiet discipline within unequal systems.
4. Intersectionality: Caste and Religion
Rather than depicting explicit acts of violence, Homebound focuses on micro-aggressions—small, everyday moments that reveal deep-seated prejudice.
5. The Pandemic as Narrative Device
The arrival of the COVID-19 lockdown in the second half of the film marks a significant tonal shift. Rather than feeling like a convenient narrative twist, the pandemic functions as an inevitable exposure of what scholars describe as “slow violence”—systemic harm that exists long before crisis but becomes visible only during catastrophe.
The lockdown transforms Homebound from a drama of ambition into a survival thriller. Aspirations tied to exams, uniforms, and institutions collapse, replaced by the basic struggle to remain alive. The road journey undertaken by the protagonists reveals that the violence they face during the pandemic is not new; it is simply the intensified version of the neglect they already endured. In this way, the film argues that the pandemic does not create inequality—it merely unmasks it.
PART III: CHARACTER & PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
6. Somatic Performance (Body Language): Chandan
Vishal Jethwa’s performance as Chandan is marked by a powerful use of somatic acting, where the body communicates trauma more forcefully than dialogue. Reviewers have noted that Chandan appears to physically “shrink” when confronted by authority figures. This is most evident in the scene where he is asked to state his full name. His shoulders curl inward, his gaze drops, and his voice hesitates—suggesting a lifetime of learned caution.
This physical contraction reflects the internalized trauma of the Dalit experience, where the body instinctively anticipates judgment and humiliation. Jethwa’s performance shows how caste oppression is not only external but deeply embodied. The hesitation around naming oneself becomes a moment of existential vulnerability, where identity itself feels like a risk rather than a right.
7. The “Othered” Citizen: Shoaib
Ishaan Khatter portrays Shoaib with a restrained intensity often described as “simmering angst.” Unlike overt rage, his frustration remains controlled, surfacing in clenched jaws, silences, and sudden emotional withdrawals. This performance choice reflects the reality of minorities who must constantly regulate their emotions to remain socially acceptable.
Shoaib’s character arc—from rejecting a job opportunity in Dubai to pursuing a government position in India—reveals a deep desire for belonging within the nation. His choice signals faith in the idea of India as home, even as lived experiences repeatedly mark him as an outsider. The film thus captures the paradox faced by minority communities: the emotional pull of home exists alongside the constant experience of being “othered” within it.
8. Gendered Perspectives: Sudha Bharti
Janhvi Kapoor’s portrayal of Sudha Bharti has been critiqued by some as functioning more as a narrative device than a fully realized character. While this criticism holds weight—her interior conflicts are less explored—her presence serves an important thematic function.
Sudha represents educational empowerment and social privilege, demonstrating how access to education can offer a comparatively stable path to dignity. Her character operates as a counterpoint to Chandan and Shoaib, revealing that effort alone does not determine outcomes; access and insulation matter. Rather than undermining the narrative, her limited development reinforces the film’s critique of structural inequality by highlighting who is allowed to imagine a future without fear.
PART IV: CINEMATIC LANGUAGE
9. Visual Aesthetics
Cinematographer Pratik Shah employs a deliberately warm, grey, and dusty color palette that visually mirrors the emotional and physical fatigue experienced by the characters. During the highway migration sequences, the framing avoids wide, scenic shots and instead favors tight close-ups of feet, dirt-stained clothes, sweat, and strained faces. These visual choices deny the audience any sense of cinematic distance or relief.
By focusing on fragmented body parts rather than whole bodies, the film constructs what can be described as an “aesthetic of exhaustion.” The repeated emphasis on feet dragging across hot asphalt, sweat mixing with dust, and labored breathing transforms movement into suffering. The road ceases to be a symbol of freedom or transition; instead, it becomes a site of relentless endurance. This visual strategy prevents romanticization and forces viewers to confront the sheer physical cost of survival.
10. Soundscape
The background score by Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor adopts a minimalist approach that relies heavily on silence and ambient sound. Instead of guiding emotional responses through swelling music, the film allows long stretches of quiet to dominate—punctuated only by footsteps, traffic hums, or labored breathing.
This restraint sharply contrasts with traditional Bollywood melodramas, where tragedy is often underscored by overt musical cues designed to elicit immediate emotional reactions. In Homebound, silence becomes an ethical choice. It respects the gravity of suffering without aestheticizing it. By refusing emotional manipulation, the soundscape aligns with the film’s realist politics, allowing tragedy to register as lived experience rather than cinematic spectacle.
PART V: CRITICAL DISCOURSE & ETHICS (POST-SCREENING SEMINAR)
11. The Censorship Debate
The Central Board of Film Certification ordered 11 cuts in Homebound, including the muting of the word “Gyan” and the removal of a dialogue referencing “aloo gobhi.” While seemingly minor, these cuts are deeply symbolic. They point to the state’s anxiety about everyday markers of identity—names, food habits, and casual speech—that subtly expose caste and communal fault lines.
Rather than censoring explicit political critique, the CBFC targets ordinary social details, revealing discomfort with cinema that foregrounds structural inequality as a lived, routine experience. Actor Ishaan Khatter criticized this as a case of “double standards,” noting that social films are subjected to greater scrutiny than mainstream spectacles. His statement highlights how realism itself becomes threatening when it reflects society too accurately.
12. The Ethics of “True Story” Adaptations
The film’s ethical standing has been questioned following a plagiarism lawsuit filed by Puja Changoiwala and claims that the family of Amrit Kumar—one of the real-life figures—was unaware of the film’s release and allegedly compensated inadequately. These controversies raise pressing ethical concerns about authorship, consent, and representation.
When filmmakers adapt stories of the marginalized, they carry a responsibility not only to raise awareness but also to ensure acknowledgment, transparency, and fair inclusion. Homebound complicates its moral authority by risking the reproduction of the same silencing it seeks to critique. The debate forces us to ask whether awareness alone is sufficient, or whether ethical storytelling must also involve accountability to the lives being represented.
13. Commercial Viability vs. Art
Despite international acclaim—including a standing ovation at Cannes and an Oscar shortlist—Homebound struggled at the domestic box office. Producer Karan Johar publicly stated that he might not make similarly “unprofitable” films again, underscoring the economic risks of serious social cinema.
This contrast exposes a fundamental tension in the post-pandemic Indian film market: while global audiences and festivals reward realism and political courage, domestic distribution systems and viewing habits often marginalize such films. The limited screen availability and flawed release strategy further constrained the film’s reach. Ultimately, Homebound reveals that in contemporary India, critical cinema survives more comfortably in global circuits than in its own theatrical ecosystem.
PART VI: FINAL SYNTHESIS — Essay Guide
Essay Prompt Response (Ideal Answer Key & Analytical Guide)
Homebound, directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, powerfully argues that dignity is not a reward to be earned through effort or loyalty to the state, but a basic human right systematically denied to the marginalized. This idea is articulated through the film’s central metaphor of the “Journey Home,” which operates simultaneously as a physical movement during the COVID-19 lockdown and as a symbolic quest for social acceptance within India’s deeply stratified social order.
On the surface, the journey undertaken by Chandan and Shoaib during the lockdown reflects a historical moment when migrant bodies were forced onto highways, exposed to hunger, exhaustion, and death. However, Ghaywan’s film insists that this journey did not begin with the pandemic. Long before the lockdown, both protagonists were already navigating exclusion—Chandan through caste-based stigma and Shoaib through religious othering. Their preparation for the police entrance exam represents an attempt to claim dignity through institutional belonging. The police uniform becomes a symbol of hope: a belief that the state can neutralize social prejudice and grant equal citizenship.
Yet, as the film progresses, this belief collapses. The overwhelming competition for limited government posts exposes the myth of meritocracy, revealing how ambition is encouraged but rarely rewarded. When the lockdown arrives, it does not disrupt an otherwise stable life; instead, it exposes the slow violence already embedded in social and bureaucratic systems. The protagonists’ physical journey home mirrors their social reality: no matter how far they walk, there is no space that fully accepts them.
Importantly, Homebound refuses the comfort of narrative resolution. Home is not presented as a place of safety or belonging, but as an illusion constantly deferred. The film suggests that for marginalized citizens, the nation itself remains a conditional space—one that demands endurance without offering protection. By denying catharsis, Ghaywan resists sentimental closure and instead confronts the audience with a troubling truth: equality appears only in moments of shared abandonment.
In conclusion, Homebound transforms the lockdown journey into a haunting metaphor for India’s moral failure. It asserts that dignity cannot be contingent upon caste, religion, or institutional validation. When dignity is treated as a reward rather than a right, the journey home becomes endless—not because the destination is far, but because acceptance itself is structurally withheld.
Conclusion
Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound powerfully suggests that dignity is not a reward to be earned through effort, obedience, or institutional recognition, but a fundamental right systematically denied by social and bureaucratic apathy. Through its careful narrative and realist cinematic language, the film exposes how marginalized individuals are encouraged to believe in the promises of equality while being structurally prevented from accessing them.
The film’s treatment of the “Journey Home” extends far beyond the physical migration forced by the COVID-19 lockdown. It becomes a metaphor for Chandan and Shoaib’s repeated attempts to find belonging within the nation—through education, competitive examinations, and faith in state institutions. Each attempt ends in quiet rejection, revealing that the idea of “home” remains conditional for those marked by caste and religion. The road they walk thus mirrors the social distance they are never allowed to cross.
By refusing emotional catharsis or redemptive closure, Homebound resists the comforting illusion that suffering inevitably leads to justice. Instead, it confronts the audience with an unsettling reality: moments of shared crisis expose not solidarity, but the depth of abandonment experienced by the most vulnerable. The film ultimately insists that equality appears only in conditions where everyone is equally abandoned, making visible the moral failure of systems that normalize exclusion. In doing so, Homebound positions cinema as an ethical witness—one that does not offer solutions, but demands accountability and reflection from its viewers.
References
- Ajay, U. K. (2025, October 2). “Stand by the lives you bring to screen”: Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound draws flak for ignoring family. Asianet Newsable.
- Barad, D. (2026). Academic worksheet on Homebound (2025). ResearchGate. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.10952.99849
- Bhattacharya, T. (2025, December 24). Oscar-hopeful Homebound faces copyright suit as author accuses Dharma and Netflix of plagiarism. Mint.
- Jha, S. (2025, October 10). Karan Johar won’t make “unprofitable” Homebound again; Neeraj Ghaywan takes dig at Sunny Sanskari*. International Business Times (India Edition).
- Keshri, S. (2025, December 29). Exclusive: Vishal Jethwa talks Homebound*, Oscar shortlist, and finding his moment*. India Today.
- Lookhar, M. (2025, December 5). How close is Homebound to the true story of Amrit Kumar and Mohammad Saiyub? Beyond Bollywood.
- Menon, R. (2025, November 24). Homebound review: A journey of friendship, identity, and a nation that keeps failing its own*. Script Magazine.
- Worksheet | Homebound (2025). (2025). Academic Film Study Worksheet. Dilip Barad. www.dilipbarad.com
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