Hum Chaar review: A simple, warm story about friendship and healing

Rajshri Productions' Hum Chaar is the story of four medical students, Namit (Prit Kamani), Sarjo (Tushar Pandey), Abeer (Anshuman Malhotra) and Manjari (Simran Sharma) who meet on campus and become good friends. But a terrible incident in their lives becomes the biggest test of their friendship.  

While Manjari is definitely a new-age Rajshri heroine, she isn't unaffected by the patriarchy and tradition.

Manjari is a rebel with a strong sense of right and wrong. She's had to fight her family for her rights and her no-nonsense personality is an extension of that struggle. She is focused on becoming a doctor so she isn't married off by her conservative father and brother.

Her strong, independent and fearless nature fascinates the three boys.

"Ladkiyon ko ladko se nahin, unke intention se dar lagta hai," says Manjari during a crucial scene. But despite her reservations, she lets the three good-hearted boys into her life and the four become great friends.

But over time all three boys discover that they are in love with Manjari and confess their feelings to each other. On her birthday, the trio decides to find out who, out of the three, is she actually in love with. But an incident that very night changes their life, causing their friendship to fall apart.

Four years later, the trio reunite to help Manjari who is going through the toughest time in her life. And it brings them back to the medical college campus that they had left on a bitter note. The rest of the story follows how they rebuild their lost friendship and in the process their individual lives.

The depiction of the baggage of the incident and how the lack of closure affects each of the characters is maturely handled.

Pandey, Kamani and Malhotra play relatable and easily likeable characters, and their good performances lift the screenplay.

Simran Sharma is confident and has the acting chops, even though she does stumble a little in the emotional sequences and a major drunken scene.

Unfortunately, the music by Vipin Patwa, George Joseph and Raaj Aashoo doesn't register.

Simran Sharma, Prit Kamani, Anshuman Malhotra, Tushar Pandey on why Hum Chaar is Rajshri 2.0

There are a few convenient plot devices and loopholes in the script too, but the film has its heart in the right place.

Debutant Abhishek Dixit's writing and direction are strong. He subverts Rajshri's formula and makes the family the villain this time around, and his primary characters are flawed. A sluggish pace and an over-extended second half affects the storytelling though.

The story in itself is simplistic in many ways, considering the complexities of modern friendships, with a thin line between platonic love, romantic love and friends with benefits.

Hum Chaar is a simple and warm story of four friends, dealing with their common tumultous past, who decide to heal themselves by welcoming each other back into their lives.