Umrika

<p>The film begins with Udai ( ) leaving his village for the United States, telling his little brother Ramakant “Rama” ( ) to always remember what he tells him. While his mother is crying due to Udai’s departure, Rama tells him to always write to the family when he gets to “Umrika” (“America” as spoken with an accent). Following the death of his father, Rama realises that the letters his family has been receiving from Udai have been forged by his father and uncle, and learns that Udai vanished when he reached the port city of . He embarks upon a journey to locate his brother. Rama learns that his brother had been working as a barber in Mumbai in a rural area. Rama is devastated and decides to join the Trafficking gang led by an underground lad who demands 2 lakh rupees to take him to New York City. Rama didn’t hesitate once and gave 2laks to the man. By that night of that day he was called at serine place to get picked up. He was then dropped off a port where he finds his brother was working as an assistant for the underground boss. He did not look at his brother and got up into a container with other girls and boys which naturally stated us it was a human trafficking container. In the climax the ship boarded for the New York city and camera pans to the back view of Uday who stares at the container ship sailing off on the huge ocean. After that the BHAI came to him and said to return the loan of 2lakhs he took from him. The soundtrack of consists of 17 tracks composed by . Shortly after its premiere, the film was sold by sales agent Beta Cinema to France, Germany, Austria, Australia, South Korea and numerous other territories, making it one of the most widely distributed Indian independent films of recent times that was, incidentally, never released in India. The film had its European premiere at the , 2015. On website has an approval score of 77% based on 13 reviews with an average rating of 6.4 out of 10. Kenneth Turan of the called a “warmly intelligent film” and included it in his 25 Films of note at Sundance 2015. Dennis Harvey of praised the film, giving kudos to “Nair’s soundly constructed script and deft handling of a very good cast.” Boyd van Hoeij of stated Nair has managed to incorporate several big and abstract topics—including what ties us to our families and place of birth and the extent to which these things are important—into a story in which they become highly personal for the characters. Nikola Grozdanovic of gave the film a rating of C− saying that, ‘”Umrika” is ultimately a story that, at worst, holds no weight, and, at best, makes little sense to someone born outside of Indian values and traditions.’ gave the film a rating of 3.5 out of 5 and said that, “It’s a sobering watch and an interesting, if not outstanding, film.” Paul Byrnes of gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 saying that, “Umrika achieves remarkable power as a story by concentrating its view of America through the eyes of people who have never been there.” Sharon Hurst of gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 and said that, “Umrika captures the anomaly and paradox that is life in India. But it is also a finely wrought narrative that ticked enough boxes for it to be a crowd-pleasing winner of the Audience Award at Sundance 2015.”</p>