Over 95% of India's population lives in object poverty. There are thousands of children without homes. Women still have little standing on a day-to-day basis. But people still go to the cinema. Bollywood is still able to make movies that make over 100 crores. Cinema has the unique ability of providing mindless entertainment, that anyone can watch, and for two to three hours viewers can forget about their own problems. Karan Johar has brought us great movies: Dostana, which subtly opened India up to homosexuality, My Name is Khan, which highlighted an important issue about Muslims in America. And then he made Student of the Year; a mix of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai's love triangle and 3 Idiots' theme of competition. The movie was, I think, an attempt to reflect on friendships and underline their importance over 'being the best'. It was an attempt to show that, in the end, the trophies you win, the grades you get and the money you make does not define you. Instead, what defines you, are the people you touch and the relationships you have. It was at heart a beautiful concept and, in my opinion, an important one too. Student of Year did achieve that goal, but in its wake it left a trail of subtle hints that all point to disrespect and ignorance.Don't get me wrong it was entertaining. The movie was funny, it had great eye candy, catchy tunes and even the acting was okay. But in the process the movie described a life in which all women were good for was talking about shoes. The movie overlooks that the majority of its' audience will never ever be able to live like the glamorous snobby people embodied. Cinema should be a trend setter; it should strive to make the country a better place to live in. Instead it told women that they should sit back and read fashion magazines and worry about their hair and boys. It told women that they would never be able to compete with men. It told women that all they will ever achieve is being a housewife. What message is that? And what message is a young woman like Alia Bhatt sending the country when she accepts a role that does this? We live in the twenty-first century and this film has taken us back seven decades. As movies strive to reach their audience, they should portray hope and satisfaction; but from the opening credits to the final song this movie flaunted a blatant indifference toward the destitution in India. What kind of a movie parades around such an obvious waste of wealth and prosperity? The movie was literally floating in a vast sea of affluence and fortune. This is all okay, I mean fine, make a movie about rich people but don't go so far as to estrange society to the extent that they cannot even imagine the displayed life anymore. Student of the Year in its essence spoke to the chauvinism so rampant in the country and alienated the entire middle class with avid disregard for money. In its quest to sell tickets and make money the makers have shown an uncaring disregard for their roles as cinematographers. It has take away the very thing movies are supposed to give, hope.

Student of the Year (2012) Karan Johar writes yet another fantastic movie that keeps you wanting more. This year Karan Johar decides to spice it up with new faces taking the spotlight. Some born to famous families and others to commoners, yet Siddharth Malhotra was as amazing as the rest and in fact he was also known as the possible next Shahrukh Khan.The story starts off with the dean of St.Teresas college being ill and summoning the group of students who were close to him on his last year before he retired. The students all come for two reasons, to meet the Dean and get the answer to a question they've had for the past 11 years. The main characters involve, Rohan Nanda (Varun Dhawan), Abhimanyu Singh (Siddharth Malhotra), and a spoilt, loving, rich girl Shanaya Singhania (Alia Bhatt) This was one of my favourite movies because it has a family friendly concept. Most movies lately don't have a mixture of emotions but this film has a hint of every emotion to make every person in the family have a blast. The songs were very catchy and had different emotions as well.This movie is family friendly which is the biggest concern nowadays. My favourite part was when the student of the year competition began and there were different stages such as the dance, IQ test, and the triathlon.However, the song lyrics aren't as amazing as the music. On the other hand, people don't listen to the lyrics so much to get the emotion in happy songs and most songs in this film are happy and peppy.This movie has some scenes that involve swearing and fighting between friends when they are having an argument. In that case, you could just tell the children to go away or forward it a little.Finally, this movie has some scenes with inappropriate clothing with men and women but you could just forward that scene or cover the eye of who it is inappropriate for.I think that children and adults would enjoy this film and that it is a good film for weekends.Student of the year is a fun filled adventure that takes you through the college life for three students who are caught in the battle of friendship and love.

At the beginning of the film, I saw the typical Salmon Khan wannabe playing his guitar with no shirt on. I just thought, really we are repeating the same thing from 10 years ago? The whole over dramatized support from the school? None of it made sense. The most stupid thing was how these "school or college??" students managed to get in to a Nightclub at midnight and danced the night away like Uni students. It just made no sense!? Everything is so plastic about this movie including the actors and actresses. I'm sure they all have a good career ahead of them but this is just a pathetic way to introduce them that's all I can say. I enjoyed the humor brought in by Rishi Kapoor, but the stupid destructive plot was too hard to bare. Very westernized, over dramatic, EXTREMELY SUPERFICIAL film. It's humiliating how crazy the whole school was over the 'new kid' and his competition, and even the 'girl' because of their good looks. It's very embarrassing and I think this film can make Bollywood a laughing stock internationally. Please don't go in reverse Karan Johar, try and make something a bit more "real". We still love your KKHH, but this is just a major FAIL!

'Student of the Year' (SOTY), though not a perfect film but was refreshing to see today's youth and its school life, although not representative of the general lot, but there are elite schools coming up all around, as the pie of the Indian middle class is expanding, so it was fun to watch SOTY. Intermittently it is better to have a movie like this being made, depicting the current life in schools or colleges, to enable populace at large, especially those that have crossed the age of 40 years and have a family of their own, to get a glimpse of the aspirations of the younger generation.This is a Bollywood film, hence one does not expect the story to match 100% of the real life, but it was still exciting to watch. One would love to see the number of songs getting reduced to cut short the unnecessary flab of fiction, unless they are spiced with extra-ordinary music and dance. Some of the songs could have been avoided. All the young actors were good and looked too innocent. Alia Bhatt looked cute, but not matured. Locales and costumes as usual of a Karan Johar film were beautiful. Overall the concept was good and the effort to make this movie does not go in vain, it is worth watching for once.