Summary User Reviews Critic Reviews (4) SYNOPSIS. Three Idiots is about 3 guys (Aamir Khan, Sharman Joshi, R. Madhavan) studying in a technological institute, their experiences, their escapades, their lives in general. The flick gives an insight on what not to do at IIT, just as the tagline says.

The public spat between the author of Five Point Someone, Chetan Bhagat, and the makers of movie based on it - 3 Idiots - doesn't seem to die down. While Chetan claims around 70 per cent of the film is lifted from the book, its lead actor Aamir Khan believes only 5 per cent of the book is embodied in the flick.

Let's try and de-mystify the similarities and differences between the movie and the book.

Similarities:

1. Broadly speaking, the plot of the film is the same as the book. Both stories are about three students of an engineering college who form an inseparable friendship over incidents that take place in the college.
2. The three characters in the book are very similar to those of the movie. While one of them - Ryan (Aamir as Rancho) - is radical and thinks differently from the rest, the second one - Hari (Madhavan as Farhaan) - is a confused character. The book's third character - Alok (Sharman as Raju) - is facing severe financial and domestic pressures.
3. The narrators are same in both the cases.
4. Some dialogues in the movie -- 'the examiner looked at me as if I had asked for his kidneys' and 'define machine' -- seem to be a straight lift from the book.
5. In the book, Neha (Kareena as Pia) tells her dad Cherian (Professor Viru played by Boman Irani) why her brother committed suicide due to the latter's demanding and dominating behaviour. Similar episode takes place in the film as well. However, the book talks about this incident in much more detail than the movie which covers this branch of the storyline in a single scene.

Differences:

1. Though the narrators are the same, the narrator of the book - Hari - romances the professor's daughter, the filmmakers give the romantic mileage to Rancho.
2. The paper stealing episode is the turning point of the book. It causes Alok to jump out of the window to commit suicide. This scene however, is twisted in the movie as Raju jumps out of the window because Boman decides to rusticate him because of hooliganism.
3. The biggest difference comes in the second half of the movie. While the book finishes at graduation, the film goes beyond it and builds on the future of the characters till 10 years later. It talks about how their careers have shaped and how their mediocrity in college played into the future.