Netflix’s The Archies Movie Review: Zoya Akhtar & Reema Kagti film will make you relive your childhood days

Language: Hindi, English

Director: Zoya Akhtar

 Cast: Agastya Nanda, Khushi Kapoor, Suhana Khan, Mihir Ahuja, Vedang Raina, Aditi Dot, Yuvraj Menda

There is something intoxicatingly romantic about Zoya Akhter and Reema Kagti’s The Archies. The concept is simple, but there are a lot of things that you will be able to relate to like the magic of picnics in the parks, going to book shops and attending the reading sessions. Memories galore, The Archies is all about nostalgia of the simple days of childhood. I guess those who have been in their teens in the sixties can relate to it all the more. No mobile phones, no video games, only simple unstructured outdoor activities, family gigs and the fun of community living.

Indian adaptation introduced seven characters — Archie (Agastya Nanda), Betty (Khushi Kapoor), Veronica (Suhana Khan), Jughead (Mihir Ahuja), Reggie (Vedang Raina), Ethel (Dot) and Dilton (Yuvraj Menda). The movie is written by Reema Kagti, Zoya and Ayesha Devitre. Produced by Tiger Baby, Graphic India, and Archie Comics, the film will take you back to the fun and frolic of your childhood days.

It is wonderful to see how Zoya Akhter and Reema Kagti were able to get into the heads of the teenagers and how they understood the psychology of the kids of that age. We all have lived through that age in our lives and that is the time when our lives were filled with books, friends, happiness and garden picnics. All things first including our first crushes to our brush with music and style has a special place in our hearts. And deep within ourselves we keep thinking, “Those were the days my friend, I thought they will never change.”

Netflix’s The Archies has mesmerising visuals and it has the ability to transport your mind to those days of innocence, music and chocolate milkshakes. Coming to the performances, everybody gave their best and it is great to see the bond among friends that we all dream of and hope it still exists with the kids of this generation. Shah Rukh Khan’s daughter, Suhana Khan’s performance as Veronica is disappointing though. She is not effortlessly charming and stylish like her father. I  am sure the audience can make out that she is trying too hard to be what she is not. And sorry to say she doesn’t have a screen presence too.

But Khushi Kapoor will make you fall in love with Betty again for her simplicity and innocence. The showstopper Archie played by Agastya Nanda is another charmer. The best thing about this film is that every minute details of the Anglo-Indian culture were paid attention to which included the food, fashion and the diction.

We often forget that Anglo-Indians are very much Indians. There is a dialogue in the movie, “Who would have remembered the Anglo Indians had everybody left for greener pastures. They (the other communities) would have said that we never existed.” Netflix’s The Archies is all about kids in high school, their lives, hobbies and how they protect their park in the hill-town of Riverdale. As one of the parents in The Archies rightly says, “The grass is greener where you watered it and not green on the other side.”

Set in the 1960s, the teen musical comedy film is very relevant in today’s world and you may ask why? Well, the movie will make you think and make you believe that it is time to go back to the simple days and not be obsessed with modernisation. It is time to slow down. I am sure the 1990s and early 2000 kids will be able to relate to a lot of things in the film which includes spending hours in book stores. These books stores taught us a lot of things which no schools can teach. It is sad to see how kids these days are falling out of the habit of reading from hard copies and most importantly they don’t have real friends. The pop-culture of the Archie comic had influenced the Indian convent school going kids of that era as much as it did the kids of America. Netflix’s The Archies on the whole is definitely a fun welcome break from the kind of serious content that we are being fed on by the different digital platforms.

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)