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Homebound (2025): Fractured Growth, Survival, and Ethical Cinema

This Blog is a part of movie screening on the movie Homebound by Neeraj Ghaywan and this task is assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad sir where I will mention the literary relevence of the movie.

Here is a infograph of my blog-

Here is video overview of my blog-

Part One as a Broken Bildungsroman

1. Aspiration as the Narrative Foundation

The worksheet first asks us to identify how the film establishes aspiration, and Homebound does this with deliberate clarity. Chandan and Shoaib are introduced as disciplined, goal-oriented young men preparing for police recruitment exams. Their daily routines—studying, training, waiting—signal faith in order, structure, and institutional legitimacy. This aspiration is not merely economic; it is deeply symbolic. The police uniform represents authority, masculinity, social respect, and, most importantly, acceptance by the state.

For marginalised subjects, such institutional entry promises erasure of social stigma. The protagonists believe that becoming part of the state apparatus will neutralise caste, religion, and class. This belief aligns closely with the classical Bildungsroman, where education and ambition lead to upward mobility and social integration. The film intentionally constructs this expectation so that its later collapse exposes the fragility of such faith.

2. Friendship as an Informal Educational Space

Another focus of the worksheet is relational development. The friendship between Chandan and Shoaib operates as an informal site of education and emotional growth. They share resources, exchange encouragement, and sustain each other’s hope. This bond mirrors traditional coming-of-age narratives where friendship supports ethical maturity and self-understanding.

However, Homebound carefully limits the power of this relationship. While friendship provides emotional stability, it cannot compensate for institutional exclusion. Their solidarity helps them endure psychologically, but it does not protect them from systemic violence. The film thus makes a crucial intervention: private bonds, however sincere, cannot overcome public inequality. Emotional closeness exists within — not outside — structures of power.

3. Exposure of Meritocracy as a Myth

The worksheet instructs close attention to institutional encounters, and it is here that Homebound dismantles the myth of meritocracy. Despite discipline, preparation, and sincerity, the protagonists encounter silent exclusions—coded questions, social markers, and bureaucratic indifference. These exclusions are rarely explicit, making them more insidious.

The system presents itself as neutral, yet operates selectively. The film exposes how examinations and institutions are embedded within caste, religious, and economic hierarchies. Education, rather than empowering, becomes a site of repeated disappointment. This critique reframes failure not as personal inadequacy but as structural design.

4. Formation Through Disillusionment

Instead of moral clarity or social integration, the protagonists gain painful awareness. Their “growth” lies in recognising systemic injustice. This is not celebratory enlightenment but a burdened consciousness. They learn not how to succeed, but why success is withheld.

This kind of formation is incomplete. The protagonists mature into uncertainty rather than stability, knowledge rather than power. The worksheet accurately describes this as arrested or fractured formation, where development exists without culmination. Experience accumulates, but identity remains unresolved.

5. The Broken Bildungsroman

Taken together, these elements confirm that Homebound functions as a broken Bildungsroman. The narrative promises growth but delivers interruption. Education does not integrate; ambition does not reward. The genre is invoked only to be dismantled, reflecting the lived realities of marginalised youth whose paths to adulthood are repeatedly blocked.

Tone and Texture: Literary Naturalism

1. Visual Realism and Observational Style

The worksheet instructs viewers to examine cinematography closely. Homebound adopts a distant, patient, observational camera. There are no dramatic angles, symbolic framing, or visual excess. The filmmaker refrains from commentary, allowing scenes to unfold without guidance.

This aligns with literary naturalism, where the narrator observes rather than judges. The camera’s restraint forces the viewer to confront reality without emotional mediation.

2. Centrality of the Body

Naturalism foregrounds physical existence, and Homebound repeatedly centres the body. Walking, sweating, hunger, injury, and fatigue dominate the visual field. Inequality is not abstract; it is inscribed on the body.

Psychological distress is communicated through physical exhaustion rather than dialogue. The worksheet highlights this emphasis on material conditions over interior monologue, reinforcing realism over introspection.

3. Sound, Silence, and Emotional Restraint

The minimal use of background score is a deliberate ethical choice. Silence becomes oppressive and prolonged, denying emotional release. Ambient sounds—footsteps, breathing, traffic—replace music.

This restraint prevents sentimental identification and creates ethical distance. The viewer is not instructed how to feel, only asked to witness.

4. Determinism and Limited Agency

Characters act, but outcomes remain unchanged. Environmental, economic, and institutional forces dominate. This deterministic worldview reflects naturalist philosophy, where individual agency exists but is severely constrained by structural forces.

5. Refusal of Aesthetic Consolation

The film refuses beauty as escape. Landscapes are not romanticised; suffering is not stylised. This refusal is ethical, preventing the consumption of pain as spectacle.

The Midpoint Turn: From Social Drama to Survival Thriller

1. Pandemic as Structural Revelation

The COVID-19 lockdown marks the narrative midpoint. The worksheet insists this be read not as disruption but as exposure. The pandemic reveals vulnerabilities that were already embedded in social life.

2. Collapse of Social Institutions

With transport halted and employment lost, institutional promises evaporate. Exams, careers, and dignity lose relevance when survival itself is threatened. This collapse exposes the fragility of state protection for the marginalised.

3. Shift in Narrative Stakes

Earlier goals are replaced by primal needs—food, rest, safety. The genre shifts into survival mode, not through spectacle but through exhaustion.

4. The Road as a Liminal Space

The road is neither home nor workplace. Citizenship dissolves here. The protagonists exist outside recognition, suspended between departure and arrival.

5. Survival Without Heroism

Unlike conventional survival thrillers, Homebound avoids heroism. Survival is slow, repetitive, and degrading, reinforcing realism over drama.

The Ending as Existential Tragedy

Ishaan Khatter's Shoaib embodies a restrained, simmering angst. His decision to reject a job opportunity in Dubai and remain in India complicates the idea of escape.

1. Denial of Narrative Resolution

The film ends without closure. Order is not restored; justice is not delivered.

2. Tragedy Without Moral Cause

There is no fatal flaw. Suffering arises from neglect and indifference rather than wrongdoing.

3. Survival as Hollow Achievement

Endurance brings no empowerment. Life continues without transformation.

4. Existential Meaninglessness

The film refuses to justify suffering. There is no lesson, aligning it with existential philosophy.

5. Ethical Burden on the Viewer

The unresolved ending transfers responsibility to the viewer, preventing passive consumption.

A Meta-Fictional Ethical Conflict

1. Adaptation from Real Lives

The film is inspired by real suffering, raising ethical questions of representation.

2. Refusal of Emotional Exploitation

By avoiding melodrama, the film resists spectacle.

3. Viewer as Witness, Not Consumer

The audience is positioned as an ethical witness.

4. Question of Narrative Ownership

Who tells these stories, and who benefits, remains unresolved.

5. Cinema as Ethical Practice

Storytelling becomes responsibility rather than entertainment.

Conclusion: A Literary Analogy

1. Alignment with Modernist and Existential Literature

Like modern novels, the film fragments progress and denies closure.

2. From Growth to Exposure

Self-development is replaced by systemic revelation.

3. “Home” as an Unreachable Concept

Home remains symbolic, representing exclusion.

4. Literary Cinema as Social Critique

Homebound exemplifies cinema that questions rather than comforts.

5. Final Ethical Insight

The film does not explain suffering; it demands attention to it.

Here is presentation :

References 

Barad, Dilip. Academic Worksheet on Homebound. ResearchGate, January 2026, DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.10952.99849. ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399486487_Academic_Worksheet_on_Homebound.

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