Aniruddh "Anni" Pathak is a divorced middle-aged man living with his teenage son Raghav, an aspiring engineer, who is awaiting the results of his entrance examination in the hope of enrolling in an Indian Institute of Technology. On the eve of the results, Anni gifts Raghav a bottle of champagne, promising him that they will celebrate his success together, unaware that Raghav is under intense pressure. The bottle of champagne only fuels Raghav's worries as to what will happen if he does not make it. The next day, while checking the results at his apartment, Raghav finds out that he has not qualified for IIT in JEE – Advanced results and, afraid of being called a "loser", he jumps off the balcony. Anni rushes to the hospital where he tries to comfort his ex-wife Maya, Raghav's mother. The doctor informs Maya and Anni that Raghav's condition is deteriorating because Raghav does not have the will to live. Desperate, Anni begins to recount the tales of his time in college, in an attempt to rekindle hope in Raghav. Raghav doubts that the stories are true. Anni, in a bid to convince Raghav, invites all his friends from college to meet Raghav, and they together begin their story. In 1992, on the first day of college, Anni is allotted a room in the H4 hostel, which is infamous for housing "losers". The occupants of the H4 block got the name because they repeatedly performed poorly in the annual sports General Championships. A dissatisfied Anni applies to change his hostel block although a clerk informs him that his application might take time. In the meantime, Anni befriends five of his hostel mates, who develop a close friendship with him:
Gurmeet "Sexa" Singh Dhillon, a hypersexual senior
Himanshu "Acid" Deshmukh, another senior famous for his short-temper and an abusive tongue
Derek D’Souza, a fourth-year student who is one of the best athletes in the college and a habitual chain-smoker
Sundar "Mummy" Shrivastav, a sickly momma's boy who is in first year of college
Sahil "Bevda" Awasthi, an alcoholic super-senior student
Over the two months, Anni forms a close friendship with the five fellows and also starts dating Maya. Meanwhile, Raghuvir "Raggie" Chalkar, a senior from H3, which is considered the most successful hostelite house, fast-tracks Anni's application because of Anni's athleticism and asks him to relocate to H3, a posh and luxurious hostel, infinitely better than H4. Anni, however, wanting to stay with his friends, turns down the offer instigating Raggie to call him a loser. Raggie also reveals that he had once made a similar offer to Derek too, but Derek had foolishly turned the offer down as well. Anni, livid at being called a loser, decides that his hostel will win the coveted GC trophy so that the tag of "losers" will be removed once and for all. He teams up with a skeptical Derek, who later buys into Anni's methods, to train his hostelites. However, he soon realizes that his team members are too weak in sports for them to have a chance at winning. To motivate them, he entreats all of them to give up one thing that they love the most till they win the GC Cup. He also comes up with a series of plans for them to distract the other participants so that they can qualify for the finals. His plans work and for the first time in the college's history, H4 reaches second in points just behind H3 and qualifies for the final rounds where they have to win a 4x400m relay race, a basketball tournament and a chess competition to beat H3 and win the GC. Raggie, now worried that H3 might lose to a bunch of "losers", tries to sabotage Derek and Bevda. Despite that, both of them win in their respective relay and chess finals. Anni tries to score a last point in the basketball finals to win but fails. Although H3 wins, Raggie genuinely congratulates H4 for putting up a good fight. Back in the present, Anni and his friends tell Raghav that, despite losing the competition, the H4 hostelites were never called "losers" again because they tried to win instead of bowing out of the competition for fear of losing, and put in so much effort and fight. Anni and his friends ask Raghav to face his surgery and upcoming life, as a fighter, forgetting the tags of winner and loser. A year later, a fully recovered Raghav attends his first day of college, requesting the viewers to never ask what the name of his college is or what his rank was since he is content that he is getting to live life.
Cast
Sushant Singh Rajput as Anirudh "Anni" Pathak, the film's protagonist and group leader of the H4 team
Shraddha Kapoor as Maya Sharma Pathak, Anni's love interest and later wife
Mohammad Samad as Raghav Pathak, Anni's and Maya's son
Losers
Varun Sharma as Gurmeet "Sexa" Singh Dhillon, Anni's senior who is obsessed with porn
Prateik Babbar as Raghuvir "Raggie" Chalkar, an H3 senior who detests Anni and his senior Derek
Tahir Raj Bhasin as Derek D’Souza, Anni's senior who has great athletic skills and is a chain smoker
Naveen Polishetty as Himanshu "Acid" Deshmukh, Anni's senior who constantly flunks his tests and has developed a bitter, swearing tongue
Tushar Pandey as Sundar "Mummy" Srivastava, an introvert who is Anni's classmate and is tied to his mother's apron strings
Saharsh Kumar Shukla as Sahil "Bevda" Awasthi, Anni's super-senior who is an alcohol addict and also a known chess champion
Recurring Cast
Aashray Batra as Raghav's Senior
Rohit Chauhan as Criss Cross
Neil Dhokte as H3 Maradona
Abishek Joseph George as H3 Venkatesh "Venky"
Nalneesh Neel as H4 Pandu
Rudrashish Majumder as H4 Bagula Freshie
Nitin Kumar Singh as H4 Fish Freshie
Ranjan Raj as H4 Abhimanyu "Danda" Rathore
Raziya Sultana as H10 Dulari Pitroda
Adarsh Gautam as Sexa's father
Sanjay Goradia as Mummy's father
Vishal Gupta as H4 Kabaddi Asthama
Kamaal Malik as Professor Mishra
Shishir Sharma as Doctor Sunit Dev Kasbekar
Abhilasha Patil as Nurse
Saanand Verma as Hostel Staff
Production
began on 30 September 2018, and first schedule was wrapped on 30 October 2018. The second schedule started on 14 November 2018 and wrapped on 15 December 2018. A portion of the film was shot at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. The theme song was shot at cost of 9 crores. This marks the reunion of choreographers Bosco–Caesar who have reunited after three years. Shane Nigam was supposed to play the role of a Malayali student, but he opted out due to scheduling conflicts with Kumbalangi Nights.
Marketing and release
In February 2019, the cast of the film donned their characters' costum video on the making of the poster on 30 May 2019. The trailer for the film was released on 4 August 2019 by Fox Star Studios. The film was theatrically released in India on 6 September 2019. Later, it was released on Video on demand on Hotstar on 1 November 2019.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to the film was composed by Pritam, while the lyrics were written by Amitabh Bhattacharya.
Reception
Chhichhore received generally positive reviews from critics. Sreeparna Sengupta of The Times of India gave the film three and half stars out of five, praising the performances of Sushant Singh Rajput, Shraddha Kapoor, Varun Sharma and Tahir Raj Bhasin. Sengupta noted that the screenplay was predictable and the pace was slow, but the film had a theme of academic success that connected with youngsters and parents, writing that "It tells you that the journey is far more important than the destination and that losing is as critical a life lesson as winning. The film scores high on many accounts and is certainly worth watching."
Box office
Chhichhore grossed 57.6 crore on its opening week.
