Movie: Karthik Calling Karthik
Year: 2010
Language: Hindi
Length: 2 hours 14 minutes
Where to watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime

First of all, I was intrigued by the name of this movie. Karthik Calling Karthik. I thought this was going to be a movie about someone with the same as the main character talking to him, and slowly taking control of his life. Boy, was I wrong. It was so much better than that!

When the movie starts and we see Karthik in therapy talking about him (not exactly) coping with his brother’s death at a young age, I seriously thought that he was the way he was because of his brother. I mean, it would make sense why he would never stand up to anyone ever again after that accident. Lowkey, I thought his brother was the one calling him, since the caller knew so much about him. When they revealed that Karthik never had a brother at the end of the movie, I outright screamed “Woah!” in shock. Why didn’t his parents tell him that he didn’t have a brother instead of just taking it so lightly. Maybe if they diagnosed him earlier, he would have not been such a mess of a human being.

His boss, landlord and colleagues are all assholes. I admired his tolerance to their bullshit. Harrassed from the moment he steps out of his house and continued harrassment at work. If it were me, I would have either physically or verbally assaulted them ages ago. Also, he highkey stole Shonali from his colleague, who wasn’t even that much of an asshole. Granted, he did have a wife and child. I have to admit that Karthik and Shonali were cute together, and their whole romance montage was adorable.

As for the main premise of the movie, it was interesting how the calls come in at exactly 5 in the morning. Karthik never questioned the source of the call or anything. My curious ass would have gone crazy just thinking about who was on the other side of the line. He did want to know who it was at first but decided not to look a gifted horse in the mouth, and I respect that. Still though, wasn’t he at least a little bit more curious?

At one point, I thought Karthik was hallucinating the calls. When the call was real real and wasn’t just part of his imagination, I was as spooked as the doctor. At least the doctor picked up the phone and attempted to talk to the other Karthik. Shonali didn’t even pick up the call and asked Karthik to ignore it, aggravating him and the other Karthik. I even thought that maybe if they just let him entertain these calls from himself, maybe he wouldn’t freak out as much. The calls were making him a better version of himself. It seemed like a win-win situation to me.

I heard what the guy selling him the phone was saying, but I, like Karthik, ignored it because there was something big being revealed at that same moment, as we see Shonali in a relationship with Ashish from work. I thought this trivial information about the phone’s functions wouldn’t be relevant to the storyline at all, right? WRONG! At the end of the movie, I recalled it and thought “How could I have been so ignorant?!”

The soundtrack was hauntingly melodic and the cast really did justice to their roles, especially Farhan Akhtar as the titular character and Deepika Padukone as the passionate Shonali. This is one of the rare movies about mental illness that I approve of, especially seeing how they handled the ending. They could have done what most other movies would have done; thrown him in the mental asylum, with Shonali visiting him. They opted for a different, more compassionate approach where Karthik and Shonali still end up together and Shonali helps him heal.

I, personally, have an experience being “diagnosed” or called schizophrenic in high school. After this movie, I am definitely, 100% convinced I am NOT schizophrenic. This movie is an excellent illustration of mental illness and it does not portray the mentally ill person as the bad guy (I mean, technically he was the good guy AND the bad guy). I would recommend this movie to anyone wanting to know more about mental illness, especially schizophrenia.

Final verdict: