For Real (film)


For Real is a 2009 film which follows the point of view of six-year-old Shruti. Family discord has a deep impact on her and she starts feeling that her mother is an alien from the Orion galaxy who has exchanged places with her own mother.

Plot

6 year old Shruti believes her mother, Priya, has been replaced by an alien from the Orion galaxy. She turns to her brother for help, but he doesn't believe her. Her father as always is so wrapped up in his work that he remains unavailable to her. Unable to bear the absence of her real mother, Shruti decides to set out and get her real mother back.
This is an intense movie dealing with the impact of seemingly trivial family tiffs on the tender psychology of a child. It portrays the world from the standpoint of a little child and shows how children perceive various things in life.

Cast

Zoya Hassan plays the main character of six-year-old Shruti. Sarita Choudhury plays Shruti's mother. Adil Hussain plays the role of Shruti's father who is perpetually preoccupied with work and does not spend much time with his family. Sriharsh Sharma plays Shruti's older brother. Sameer Dharmadhikari also plays a role in this film.
Sarita Choudhury has previously been seen in The Accidental Husband and movies like Lady in the Water. Sameer Dharmadhikari is a popular face on Indian television. Both the child actors in the film, Zoya Hasan and Sriharsh Sharma, have won the best actress and best actor award respectively at the Asian Festival of First Films.

Production and reception

For Real was directed, produced and screenwritten by Sona Jain.
The film was well received, drawing praise as the only English-language film in the Indian Panorama section of the 40th International Film Festival of India. It took almost five years for the film to find sponsors and it was finally released in 2009. It received four awards at the Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore.