has anyone had the chance to see this movie yet?? i cant wait to see it… gosh.. sanjay suri is another actor i adore
Re: my brother nikhil
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Re: my brother nikhil
should be one of the better movies comin out so far, and my in my opinion suri is very under rated along with rahul bose
Re: my brother nikhil
^ i love those two... have u seen them in Jhankar Beats.. awesome duo
Re: my brother nikhil
Sanjay Suri has that calm mellow personality thing going for him - I think he's a great actor... just needs stronger roles to flourish and develop his talent further.
Rahul Bose is just so-so though... or maybe I haven't seen the right movies.
Re: my brother nikhil
hmmm have u seen rahul bose 's Mr & Mrs Iyer.. or Jhankar Beats? i thought they were both really well done.. but he doesnt get much lines... hmm
Re: my brother nikhil
I've seen Jhankar Beats... but only liked Suri's acting in it alongwith Juhi... I was just interested in it cuz of the songs cuz as a sequel to DWPW which had two old songs nicely redone in it - the acting in that movie was superb though as well by Suri, Jimmy and others.
Re: my brother nikhil
yeap, i thought the acting in DWPW was awesome.. it was actually quite halarious.. and the remake of the old songs (especially Mere samne wali khirki mein) was awesome...
Jhankar Beat had several remakes too no?
U shuold see Mr & Mrs Iyer.. i reckon u might like that.. very different. If u liked Raincoat, ud like this too
Re: my brother nikhil
Oh i thought nikhil25 is your brother:smack2:
Now days we have so many chote bhai behan on GS.
Re: my brother nikhil
New York Times reviewed this film.
Bollywood takes a gamble
`My Brother Nikhil’ opened in Indian movie theaters last month and surprisingly didn’t kick up the slightest fuss from India’s cultural conservatives
By Somini Sengupta
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , MUMBAI, INDIA
Friday, Apr 08, 2005,Page 17
Advertising Late last month, a low-budget drama called My Brother Nikhil opened in movie theaters across India, telling the story of a gay man’s struggle with his family and his country after contracting the virus that causes AIDS.
Quietly, gently, My Brother Nikhil has tested the limits of the Indian cinemagoer’s sensibility.
Commercially, it is no runaway Bollywood blockbuster; nor is it meant to be. Rather, its impact lies in having served up a story about love and loss – sentimental staples of contemporary Indian cinema – with a gay man at its center, and having done so without kicking up the slightest fuss from India’s cultural conservatives. As one review published in the latest issue of Outlook, a mainstream newsweekly, put it: “The two lovers seem just like any other couple.”
Playing here in Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, and in about a dozen other major cities in India, My Brother Nikhil is part of a new breed of Bollywood pictures known here as the “multiplex movie” – appealing to an urban middle-class audience, peppered with English phrases, and easy on the song-and-dance numbers and potboiler story lines usually associated with Indian commercial cinema.
A cinema hall worker removes a poster of Bollywood film Girlfriend, based on a relationship between two women, fearing protest in Allahabad, India. Gay film My Brother Nikhil has been less controversial, barely causing concern for censors.
PHOTO: AP
“For me, it’s a film about relationships,” said its director, who goes by one name, Onir. “Between father-son, brother-sister, lovers, a gay couple, friends.”
Even so, it was the gay relationship that had to be most carefully rendered. Onir, 35, said he took pains to make a film that would speak not to an elite, worldly, film-festival set, but to ordinary Indians who watch ordinary Bollywood films.
There are no explicit love scenes in the film. There is not a single kiss between the two men in the leading roles, and nothing approaching a bedroom scene – this at a time when Bollywood is witnessing an explosion of skin flicks, albeit all heterosexual.
“It’s not advocating anything; it’s not propaganda; it’s just another love story,” Onir said of his film. “I’ve had old people coming up to me. They don’t say gay. They say `Unka friendship accha dekha hay.”’ (“Their friendship is well portrayed.”)
“It means a lot in a country like India,” he added. “It’s important for me that it was accepted.”
The film comes at a time when rights activists are pressing for the overturn of India’s constitutional ban on homosexuality. This week, the Supreme Court agreed to review the law.
My Brother Nikhil has faced none of the protests that six years ago greeted Fire, Deepa Mehta’s film about two women in love. Actors and athletes have been plugging My Brother Nikhil in television spots, an extraordinary marketing ploy in an industry where few people plug movies that are not their own.
“I care about my brother Nikhil. Do you?” is the punch line.
“This film has shown it’s possible to show a committed gay couple,” said Vikram Doctor, a journalist here who is active with a support group called the Gay Bombay Group. “It’s passed the Censor Board without any comment. Theaters have not been attacked. There’s no catcalling. It’s treated respectfully by the audience and the filmmaker. I’m happily surprised.”
The film has many of the ingredients of an ordinary Bollywood picture; it is distributed by Yash Raj Films, a Mumbai house known for its blockbuster Bollywood projects. And the two lead actors are known Bollywood names: Sanjay Suri, who plays Nikhil, and Juhi Chawla, who plays his sister, Anamika.
Perhaps most to the point, it is a tear-jerker, a story of forbidden love and its social consequences. Taran Adarsh, the editor of Trade Guide, a weekly film-industry publication, called it “a lump-in-the-throat movie.”
In the film, Nikhil is a star swimmer and the golden child in his family until the day he is found to have HIV. His parents shun him, his friends abandon him and he finds himself locked up in a dirty sanatorium. The two people who do stand by him are his sister and his partner.
One of the most disturbing episodes in the film was lifted from real life. Just as Nikhil is quarantined in the film, the first Indian to be diagnosed with HIV, a young man in Goa named Dominic D’Souza, was similarly confined and isolated in the late 1980s. In other words, as Suri noted, “it took 15 years” to represent that indignity onscreen.
Still, Onir said, it was not easy to make the film. Both he and Suri knew it was a gamble. Some potential producers declined. Others suggested that the gay theme be excised, a suggestion Onir said he declined. Friends and well-wishers counseled Suri to be careful playing a gay lead, warning that it could bode ill for his career.
“At the end of the day, everyone wants to play it safe,” Suri said.
Re: my brother nikhil
you called, bhai? 
(btw, this movie is very good)
Re: my brother nikhil
The director Onir is from Bhutan ....
Onir: The man behind ‘My Brother: Nikhil’
By Subhash K Jha
He’s shy, and withdrawn. He started by editing Sai Paranjpye, Ram Gopal Varma, Prakash Jha and Kalpana Lajmi’s films. “It was during Kalpana Lajmi’s Daman that I met Sanjay Suri. He played the male lead in that film. We became very good friends. He pushed me to write scripts. My Brother…Nikhil is my fifth script.
I’ve had problems with all my scripts because all of them deal with a certain unpredictability in human nature, be it impotency or alternate sexuality. Every time I write a gay character I’m reminded that over here in Bollywood homosexuals are always projected as caricatures. Why can’t alternate sexuality be dealt with more maturity?”
On My Brother…Nikhil, “I was told by other producers to make Sanjay Suri’s character bi-sexual. I’m so glad Sanjay had the guts to take the plunge.”
Onir had been struggling to make his film for four years. “My first film was about a gigolo and a prostitute. Today it sounds like a cheesy film. But back then it made sense to me to make that film. I enjoy making films about characters on the edge.”
He describes the struggle to try to make the film. “It was the most beautiful experience and yet so stressful. But I got such invaluable support from the crew and friends. A friend in Germany, Anita Dongre, sent a cheque when I had no money for the second schedule. I started writing the film in April and I started shooting in August.”
And now My Brother…Nikhil releases at a time when conventional cinema is getting surprisingly successful. “Yes, I’m only looking at recovering our budget of 2. 25 crore rupees. If the film works I can make more films that I believe in. When people tell me to make a more commercial film I don’t know whay it means. Because to me Page 3 with no stars and Black with the stars cast against their images, are as non-commercial as can be. And yet they’re hits! I pray this trend continues. It makes things easier for a filmmaker like me. I hope things would be easier for me next time.”
To market a film where the male protagonist is a gay AIDS victim isn’t easy. “When I wrote the script I didn’t forcibly make my hero gay. It just happened. I’ve this bad habit to name all my protagonists in all my scripts Nikhil and Anamika. This particular Nikhil kept growing into a much bigger entity than the issue that the film addresses. When Sanjay and I were told my producers to change the hero’s sexual orientation we decided to do it ourselves.”
Does this debutant director feel like a misfit in Bollywood? “Everything is tough for a first time director whom no one trusts. And because you’re an unconventional filmmaker even critical expectations multiply. So it’s like a losing the battle both ways. You can’t get big stars to work in your film. Thank God Karan Johar saw the film and recommended us to Yashraj Films. Otherwise my belief as a filmmaker would’ve been shaken.”
Onir wants to make a “kind of Greek tragedy” where characters constantly discover each other. “Again I want to cast Sanjay Suri, not because we’re close friends. But because I see him in the next script as well. I won’t cast him just brecause he’s my best friend. For me it’s very important to connect with people I work with. I’ve decided to do my work exactly the way I want to. Right now I’m totally broke. I never assisted anyone. Now I need a helping hand to go further. My next move will depend on the way Nikhil takes me.”
Re: my brother nikhil
man this wa a movie to watch
seriously nothin wrong was shown and the acting me every person was 110% especially sanjay suri in the last half hour of the movie was amazing
I really recommend it to people who want to watch story and DRAMA and not latka jharkas and songs
rating for execution, story line and production of movie from me 8.75694/10
Re: my brother nikhil
Saw this movie just a couple of days ago. Loved it. Sanjay Suri does a great job, as usual. Another movie I liked him in was Pinjar. The story is quite sad; my mom and I cried through the whole thing...it's pretty touching. Yeah the story is not that different, the guy gets AIDS but they way they tell the story is nice. I mean how Juhi (plays his sister) and his best friends stand by him while even his parents abandon him. Another thing I liked was how they showed that lack of knowledge and resources can make a whole town ignorant. Btw Juhi is another actor I love very much. It’s a good movie if u feel like watching something moving and serious.
Re: my brother nikhil
jus finished watching the movie...excellent and a really well made movie. Suri has done a very good job...and is improving by every movie...and Juhi is good like always.