‘Homebound’ Movie Review: Ishaan Khatter and Vishal Jethwa Are Incredible in Neeraj Ghaywan’s Heart-Wrenching Portrait of Friendship and Survival (LatestLY Exclusive)

Homebound Movie Review: We Indians have this ingrained habit of prying out someone’s full name. Even if they offer only their first, we gently - or not so gently - coax them to reveal the rest. Sometimes it’s a casual reflex, sometimes a deliberate social probe. In Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound (his second feature film after Masaan), there are two pivotal moments where Chandan (Vishal Jethwa) is asked for his full name. ‘Homebound’ Selected As India’s Oscar Entry: Karan Johar Feels Deeply Honoured and Humbled As His Film Is Selected As Country’s Official Entry for Oscars 2026.

In one case, it is a measure of whether he is 'worthy' to sit across from someone. In the other, it becomes a cue for the other person to fear him or not because of his caste. This is the mirror Ghaywan holds up to society - a world where one can be terrified of uttering their own name, let alone claiming their identity. If this feels like an exaggeration, perhaps you haven’t been reading the news closely enough.

'Homebound' Movie Review - The Plot

Chandan and Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) are childhood friends from a village in North India. Chandan hails from a lower-caste Hindu family - his parents work as daily wage labourers, and his sister has had to abandon her education to help them survive. Shoaib, a Muslim, lives with his mother and a disabled father who dreams of sending him to Dubai for work.

Watch the Trailer of 'Homebound':

But the boys have a different dream. They want to join the police force, believing the uniform will give them the respect their names never could. When the recruitment results are delayed, frustration forces them to seek jobs elsewhere. The moment the results finally come, only Chandan clears the written exam, and Shoaib’s failure drives a wedge through their once-unshakable bond.

'Homebound' Movie Review - A Painful Reminder

This is only half the story. Homebound, produced by Dharma Productions (who also made the hard-hitting Dhadak 2 earlier this year), draws inspiration from journalist Basharat Peer’s New York Times essay Taking Amrit Home, about the mass labourer migration during India’s first COVID-19 lockdown. The film’s second half focuses on this painful chapter in recent history - when millions of workers, stripped of livelihood and transportation, were forced to walk home across hundreds of kilometres, many dying along the way.

Chandan and Shoaib’s journey mirrors this ordeal. After their factory in Surat shuts down (and Chandan’s appointment letter is indefinitely delayed), hunger and desperation push them to set out for their village on foot. Their grim passage is harrowing: a brief truck ride ends abruptly when one of them develops a fever and they are cast out mid-journey. Pratik Shah’s cinematography captures the desolate emptiness stretching endlessly before them, the two friends trudging on in search of water, in search of life. The sequence is heartbreaking - as much as the real footage that flooded our newsfeeds five years ago, when we were busy banging thalis and lighting diyas.

You can sense where their journey is headed, yet it doesn’t dull the impact. One of the final scenes even recalls VR Gopinath’s 1989 Malayalam film Unnikuttanu Joli Kitti - inevitable conclusion, but still leaving you emotionally gutted over the irony it presents.

'Homebound' Movie Review - Grounded Portrayal of Caste and Religious Discrimination

If the second half chronicles their arduous trek home, the first half lays bare the forces that placed them on this path. Ghaywan’s screenplay feels ripped from everyday headlines; stories we’ve become frighteningly numb to, as if shrugging them off with that tired line: "India is not for beginners." ‘Homebound’ Screening: Hrithik Roshan, Vicky Kaushal, Twinkle Khanna and Other Celebs Grace the Red Carpet Ahead of Film’s Theatrical Release on September 26 (Watch Videos).

The film opens with Shoaib and Chandan racing to catch a train to their exam centre, only to find the railway station overcrowded, with aspirants crammed into every inch of space. It’s here Chandan meets Sudha (Janhvi Kapoor), who later becomes his girlfriend.

Sudha, also Dalit, comes from a better-off family. As Chandan bitterly reminds her during an argument, she has a pucca terrace to flaunt during video calls, while he sleeps under a leaking roof. She believes education is the path to liberation and upliftment, urging Chandan to complete his graduation. Chandan, on the other hand, just wants a job - enough to lift his family out of misery.

Chandan is also hesitant to tick the reserved category box on forms, a choice that annoys Shoaib, who believes caste-based reservation is not charity but a right. In one tense moment, Chandan lies about his caste to a government employee, who 'tests' him by slurring Dalits as "quota-grabbers."

Shoaib, meanwhile, faces his own ordeal of casual and overt Islamophobia. Ghaywan captures both the subtle jibes and the overt slurs, the constant need for validation, the endless accusations of disloyalty ("Pakistani" being the easiest insult). Crucially, Ghaywan avoids painting every UC character with the same brush. Shoaib’s Hindu supervisor genuinely wants him to succeed, while their boss, seemingly appreciative of Shoaib's salesmanship skills, reveals his bigotry with an easy laugh at a communal joke.

The discrimination extends to the families. Chandan’s mother, who begins working at a school meal programme, faces a backlash from parents who don’t want a Dalit woman cooking for their children. Even the headmaster’s reminder that untouchability is illegal falls on deaf ears - a sobering reminder that caste endures because it is nurtured, generation after generation. ‘Dhadak 2’ Movie Review: Siddhant Chaturvedi and Triptii Dimri Impress in a Powerful Remake That Boldly Tackles Its Caste-Politics.

Beyond caste and religion, Homebound critiques systemic rot - rising unemployment, endless recruitment delays, poverty, gender disparity, and government apathy. The screenplay weaves these issues in without didacticism, while the dialogues (by Ghaywan, Varun Grover, and Shreedhar Dubey, who also plays Shoaib’s empathetic supervisor) remain grounded and natural. There are no speechy monologues, just raw, lived-in exchanges - including a beautifully metaphorical line about not becoming a dead rubber ball.

'Homebound' Movie Review - The Performances

Ishaan Khatter, perennially underrated despite being one of the most promising actors of his generation, delivers a pitch-perfect performance as Shoaib. His quiet simmering frustration in the first half, his gut-wrenching breakdowns during the journey - he makes them feel painfully real.

Vishal Jethwa, as the dreamy-eyed Chandan, is equally impressive, his earnestness anchoring the emotional core of the film. Janhvi Kapoor does well in her extended cameo, while Harshika Parmar, Shalini Vatsa, and Pankaj Dubey bring poignancy to their supporting roles.

'Homebound' Movie Review - Final Thoughts

With heartbreaking performances from Ishaan Khatter and Vishal Jethwa, Homebound is never expected to be an easy watch; reality often isn't. Ghaywan crafts a film that is at once intimate and universal, a story of two friends that's also about millions whose struggles never make headlines. It pricks the national conscience and asks uncomfortable questions about who gets to dream, who gets to survive, and what it means to be homebound in a country that often rejects its most vulnerable. Homebound is both a searing critique and a quiet elegy - a film that forces us to confront the fractures we’ve normalised around ourselves. Homebound is streaming now on Netflix.

(The opinions expressed in the above article are of the author and do not reflect the stand or position of LatestLY.)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 26, 2025 05:28 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).