Last Bench Movie Reviews

Story:

Four friends meet after a long time and walk down the memory lane of their school days.

Movie Review:

Last Bench heavily relies on one factor - nostalgia. The film overlaps the memories of four young men who attend a friend's wedding after a long time. The narrative is so soaked in memories that the four friends weep, sigh and hug for a considerable part of the film.

The friends are weak in studies but good at mischief. Their teachers punish them, classmates are sick of them and their parents belittle them. There is the familiar entry of a new teacher entrusted with the mission of transforming them and a new girl appears as a late admission to facilitate the love-plot.

The director leisurely takes his characters through their final day at school. They are framed sitting in the classroom, walking along the veranda, huddling together under a tree and exiting their school very slowly.

The characters are so steeped in nostalgia that they end up at their school on the night before the wedding. The frames repeat, the memories flow again until one of the characters is driven by a desire that he had relinquished long ago. Last Bench suffers from its intolerable pre-occupation with the past and the way characters are burdened with feelings of loss, guilt and longing.