UDAAN------Unwelcome at School, and at Home, Too

A coming-of-age story, “Udaan” is an impressive debut feature by Vikramaditya Motwane that covers familiar first-film ground with emotional conviction and freshness. A kind of Indian cousin to Truffaut’s “400 Blows,” “Udaan” follows the fortunes of Rohan (the sweet-faced Rajat Barmecha), an aspiring writer whose horizons shrink when he’s kicked out of prep school. He is sent home to Jamshedpur, an industrial town in northeast India, to live with a father he hasn’t seen in years and a 6-year-old half brother, Arjun, he didn’t know he had.
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Rohan immediately squares off with his father (Ronit Roy), a petty tyrant who demands to be called Sir (as in, “Sir is waiting”) and thinks nothing of stomping on Rohan’s dreams or using him as a punching bag.

“Udaan,” the first Indian movie in seven years to be an official selection at Cannes (in this year’s Certain Regard category), is at its best in loose, picaresque scenes showing the restless bravado of Rohan and his going-nowhere pals as they drink, brawl and joy ride. (The opening prep-school sequence is a classic of the boys-will-be-misbehaving-boys type.)

The father-son plot — the story’s motor — is stickier, occasionally relying on contrivance to move ahead. Part of the problem is that the father is too much a fairy-tale ogre. Mr. Roy gives him a military bearing and an unbending self-righteousness (even as he drinks himself silly). But while the movie wants to suggest he’s something more than a monster, it can’t say what that might be. (Why, for example, does sentimental music run under a scene in which the father, drunk, threatens Rohan and calls him a girl?)

Still, Mr. Motwane has an ability to present melodramatic material without the Bollywood-style melodrama. He shrewdly has his actors underplay, especially Aayan Boradia, the adorable little boy who portrays Arjun. This way, Mr. Motwane knows, tears lie.

“Udaan” means “to take flight.” That’s what you wish for Rohan and Arjun. And with this film Mr. Motwane gives himself a leg up.