Mimi

Introducing a topic like surrogacy to an Indian audience that is generally obsessed with marriage and childbearing is a risky undertaking. How do you do it without nudging cultural norms, hurting sentiments, dismissing opinions, not mocking ignorance and yet finding a way to tell a story that leads to a digestible ending? The story writer and director of Mimi had their task cut out and it feels like they settled into a heartwarming story despite some obvious WTFs.

The first half of the movie feels like a forced crash course on surrogacy. The why, how and who are introduced – sometimes with cringeworthy dialogues and over the top acting. The biggest WTF, you ask? Why is Mimi (Kriti Sanon) talking in a thick Haryanvi accent throughout the movie when she is from Bikaner, Rajasthan?? It made the kadi and mishri mawa in my blood boil! Still bubblin’…

The second half gets better with Mimi developing a spine and attachment to the baby she is carrying for a foreign couple. Mimi enlisting Bhanupratap Pandey (Pankaj Tripathi) as her “husband” was the most masterstroke move of story writing in this film. Pankaj Tripathi is a natural! He is astonishingly good in both comic and serious scenes. Figuratively he carries as much weight in this movie as Kriti carries literally. Speaking of weight – I am ready to be stoned – but I feel Kriti looked so much prettier in the second half of the movie where she has gained some weight. Her slightly more rounded face made her look gorgeous compared to her otherwise boney structure. Your mileage may vary…

The internet is ablaze with a feminism laden debate about Mimi’s choice to keep the baby and with that signaling an anti-abortion message but people forget that just because Mimi made a choice for her own personal situation it doesn’t mean others may not choose to have an abortion. What may be right for one person’s circumstances may be wrong for another’s. What matters is having a choice in the first place.

While Evelyn Edwards and Aidan Whytock acted well as the foreign ‘parents’ their characters were such a yoyo! I lost count how many times they wanted the baby and then didn’t want it and then wanted it again. Those flip flops were a bit too jarring to handle. Also, using the news of down syndrome as a mechanism to make the parents run away was more than tasteless! Turns out the kid is not born with down syndrome so everyone’s back with heir happy faces. This mockery of a genetic disease and many families’ reality was far worse than Mimi’s choice to abort or keep.

My eyes have forgotten how to cry these days but towards the end of this movie I found myself pulling the sleeve of my T-shirt more than once. Call me a weakling if you want… (7/10)

Toofan

Is the story novel? No.

Are the characters novel? No.

Does this boxing saga knock you off your feet? No.

Is the movie feel good? Yes.

Toofan is entirely carried by the excellent acting skills of Farhan Akhtar, Mrunal Thakur & Paresh Rawal. Farhan Akhtar fails to convince me in his thug avatar for the first 10 minutes of the film but once he is transformed into his “Aziz Ali – the Boxer” role he shines! Mrunal Thakur, who I remember liking in Super 30, surprised me with her very natural and endearing performance. She isn’t the classic Indian model. She is the cute girl next door with life under her skin. Paresh Rawal ka kya kehna? You put him in any role and he’ll be just that – single dad, a friend, a boring coach, a grandfather.

This story of a street fighter turned boxer who later has to redeem himself has been told time and again. The characters aren’t fully developed, there’s a lot of song and dance and yet it’s a good one-time entertainer.

My favorite dialogue? “Bhai mufti mein chinggum (chewing gum) nahi fulane ka. Sala fat gaya to apne hi muh pe aake lafa padega!” <– Filed away under life lessons. 😉

6/10

Haseen Dillruba

What started as a genre-busting melange of a crime thriller, murder mystery and romantic drama rapidly – as in slippery slope rapidly – deteriorates in a WTF climax in the last 15 minutes. Though slowly, the tension was building and I did want to solve the whodunnit…until the leads started to bring a cheap mystery novel’s plot to life.

I have always enjoyed watching Taapsee Pannu’s performances and lately Vikrant Massey’s too. However, both their characters so frequently slipped out-of-character throughout the plot that I kept scratching my head thinking who the writer really wanted me to sympathize with.

Not only the main leads, the mother-in-law, the father-in-law all just came and went as it suited the writer. The only consistently negative character was Harshvardhan Rane’s.

I like the storytelling format of Taapsee’s narration of her life story to the police officer in flashback, interspersed with a real-time investigation.

I am facing a classic attribution modeling problem rating this movie. If I go with the first impression method I’d say this is a 8/10. If I go with the classic – but very flawed – last click model I’d be at a 1/10. A weighted average or a data-driven attribution seems hard to calculate due to the volatility of the plot. Call me generous but I enjoyed it enough to give it a 6/10.

Sherni

The story arc of this movie resembles the slightly-elevated-due-to occasional-high-blood-pressure but otherwise dying patient’s heartbeat. It goes something like this: forest officer in forest – tigress sighting – political rally – death of a villager – forest officer in forest – tigress sighting – political rally – death of a villager…you get it, this loop repeats about three times and then the story dies.

After the flat intro of about 20+ minutes you expect the story to develop but the pace of the movie carries on like a poorly made wildlife documentary. There is a sprinkle of illegal animal hunting, a dash of feminism, a whole splash of political agendas but the “so what” is elusive til the very abrupt end.

It’s hard to assemble a star cast as illustrious as Vidya Balan, Vijay Raaz and Neeraj Kabri and criminal to then let such great talent go to waste. Each of them got under the skin of their characters, as they always do, but none of them had any oomph written into their roles.

At times Sherni feels like a political satire. At times it feels like it’s trying to carry a pro-wildlife agenda. At times Vidya Balan is supposed to be the Sherni but her character is merely that of a house cat with slightly rough nails. (3/10)

Skater Girl

A story about women empowerment, told by a woman with the help of four female characters. Skater Girl may sound like the title of a movie shot in Brooklyn showcasing the grit of a Western teenage girl finding her place on the skate slopes. However, the setting of this movie couldn’t be more different – a small village outside of Udaipur, Rajasthan. Dust-filled air, small huts with leaking roofs, water fountains segregated by class system.

A half-Indian woman comes to this village in search of her ancestry and stays behind to uplift the life of the village children by giving them a reason to believe. Along with a set of friends she sets out to build a skatepark for these children that have fallen in love with skateboarding but are not allowed to use it around the village. God forbid you are a girl spotted on a board.

While this is not the first movie, especially in recent times, that shows the change opportunities can bring to women’s lives it’s interesting to see how four different women relate to the struggle of emancipation in their own ways:

Prerna, a teenager, has every life decision made for her by her father. She is not allowed to go to school. She has to marry the man of her father’s choice so he can get rid of her. She isn’t given the freedom to think, be, or want.

Prerna’s mother, a dutiful housewife, struggles between the obedience towards her husband, her own desire to change “the system” and supporting her daughter to live her dream.

Jessica, the half-Indian visitor from London, is successful in her career, searching for meaning in life and unmarried. No doubt, the last descriptor is shoved in her face more than once.

Maharani sa belongs to the Royal family of Rajasthan but has had her own nondescript struggles with rules for women which motivates her to support the idea of a skatepark in her village.

Prerna’s little brother, Ankush, deserves a special mention: Untainted by gender bias, eternally optimistic, mischievous and always ready to support his sister (even by giving her the pants he is wearing so she can skate on her wedding day :)) is the kind of character you cannot help but fall in love with.

Another noteworthy, yet underdeveloped character, is that of Subodh’s – Prerna’s school friend and silent admirer. He is a beacon of support but somehow gets forgotten as the story develops.

Skating may seem like an unusual sport to introduce village kids to but it can be seen as a metaphor for ‘opportunity’ of any kind. Just the other day, I was discussing with a few friends how learning anything as a child is so much easier, more effective and joyful than learning as an adult. When you see the sparkle in Prerna’s eyes as she stands on a skateboard for the first time, arms spread, “flying” down a dust road you know what freedom looks like.

For those of you who only know me as an adult here’s a little know secret: As an 11-year-old, I too was a little skater girl giving wings to my heart navigating the hilly roads of my hometown on my green, yellow and pink light-up skateboard!

A great watch even if it has some flaws and unfinished threads. (8/10)

Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar

What you see is not what is…and what is is not what you see. Starting with the “got you!” title all the way through to the end this movie is a playground for gender role bending in more than one way. Men and women are depicted with predictable characteristics in Hindi cinema since eons. Sometimes a director will take a stab at undoing that conditioning with a bad attempt like Ki and Ka and then there are directors like Dibakar Banerjee who bring a unique playfulness to it. Don’t ask me why it’s always Arjun Kapoor who begs the lead roles for ‘gender twists’.

Two people from completely different walks of life have one goal: escape the country and head to Nepal. One is running away from a crime of creating a Ponzi scheme at a bank. The other’s crime is unknown (I wish there was a more context on it) but the enemy is the same.

Together, they end up in a mountain village near the Nepal border where they meet a very Indian couple acted by Neena Gupta and Raghubir Yadav. The scenes of these four people living together are some of my favorite. The gender differences come to light quite starkly and despite each of the characters being so different the hint of bonding doesn’t go unnoticed.

Despite many delightful role reversal moments there are some slightly unrealistic ones but they serve the plot so I’ll take them with a grain of salt.

Not one actress/actor has left any stone unturned. I was particularly surprised by Arjun Kapoor who I don’t normally remember as a great character actor.

At times I felt the story needed more time to be told but I’ll take a good short story over a long drab one. (7/10)

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl

Disclaimer: I understand the portrayal of men of the Indian Air Force in this movie is being heavily debated – and most likely rightfully so – hence this review is not about the handling of that reality but rather a view on other aspects of the film.

With the recent conversation about nepotism I am fully aware that Janhavi Kapoor didn’t have it easy to act in this movie so I started watching it with a clean slate imagining she is just an actress and not a star kid. Acting skills were particularly important in this role because it is a movie that requires an actress and not a heroine in typical Bollywood manner. I haven’t seen Janhavi Kapoor’s first film – Dhadak – yet but I felt she was ok in this one. Neither good, nor bad. I have seen far worse acting…and by that I mean faaaaaar worse. However, she still lacks finesse in emoting and fully feeling the character. Her facial reactions to the rather charged situations in the plot are a bit lackluster. That’s not to say she can’t get better. But yes, the question remains would another mediocre actress get another chance if she was not a star kid?

Take Angad Bedi, for example. He did a fantastic job with the few scenes he had but will he get meatier roles because of that going forward?

Obviously, I don’t know how close this story is to the real life of Gunjan Saxena but more than the heroic actions Gunjan undertakes in the movie and the resilience with which she goes through her training what really stood out to me is the father daughter relationship and the related equal opportunity discussion. I watched this movie with a lump in my throat from beginning to end recognizing many of the cards Gunjan was being dealt just because she was a girl.

Allow me to digress:

Many girls grow up with career aspirations that are either directly thwarted by their families and/or circumstances or indirectly sabotaged by themselves because they feel pressured by the society they grew up in to follow a certain path. The later is only accentuated by the lack of guidance and support in their lives. I wish every girl had a father or mother, an elder brother or sister, or another mentor in life who would not let those dreams of her die under the burden she is carrying by virtue (or vice) of her gender.

The father daughter relationship in this movie was exceptionally endearing. The conversations between Anup Saxena and Gunjan are a masterclass in mentorship. He listens with an open mind, he understands, he doesn’t give her an answer but gently guides her through getting to her own answers. These are true leadership skills in any milieu! I was moved to tears in the scene where he takes her to the kitchen and explains to her why marriage is not a bad thing but why giving up her dream is. It is just incredibly unfortunate that for many girls it is often not an AND situation but an OR situation.

It pains to see how at every turn her otherwise loving mother and brother belittle Gunjan for her aspiration. It is a very true reflection of our society. Take two siblings: a boy and a girl. Both are similarly qualified (or if one had access to less privileged educational opportunities it’s not because of her lack of intellect but because of the lack of encouragement she was given), both are earning similar amounts of money, both are doing full-time jobs BUT the expectation is that the girl can cook, clean, iron, organize, research things for the home, the car, the family’s health…the whole nine yards. The boy is expected to just do well in his job and God forbid he is away from his “work” for a few minutes he “needs to relax”. How did we end up in a world like this?

Films can’t alter reality but they can steer conversation. It may take another generation or two to get anywhere close to equality but every commercial endeavor that gets people to reconsider their thinking is worth it. (7/10)

Bandish Bandits

Disclaimer: I have zero musical bones in my body when it comes to Indian classical music so I am in no position to comment on the quality of music and singing in this web series. But I do know a thing or two about good storytelling, believable acting and engaging visuals so my review is primarily based on those aspects.

Have you ever experienced FOMO even before the absence of the thing that was giving you joy? This is how I felt as I was past episode 5 of Bandish Bandits. I simply did not want this to end!

It took two episodes for Ritwik Bhowmik to grow on me but man was that some hockey stick growth! His acting is commendable and the way he got under Radhe’s skin still gives me goosebumps. It is hard enough for some people to deliver a straight dialogue and here he is mimicking classical vocals as if he has been doing it out of his cradle. I had never heard of or seen Ritwik before so for me Ritwik = Radhe and Radhe = Ritwik in real life. Just to see how different he could actually be in real life I started following him on Instagram and up until now I am positively surprised that he is the same down-to-earth, humble, approachable person that Radhe is.

I was similarly impressed by Shreya Chaudhary, who is playing the more modern pop singer Tamanna Sharma. These type of characters can become rather unlikeable in a story, especially when compared to a character like Radhe’s but Shreya did a beautiful job of staying just as likeable as him.

The innocence of both the protagonists is very special and carries throughout the series.

The casting director of this show deserves an extra special hat tip for his excellent ensemble of every single character. It is common to see a few good actors and a slew of mediocre actors as part of a movie/show but in this case he hand-picked a cast that seems like they were just waiting for this role to come their way. From Naseeruddin Shah as the strict Sangeet Samrath with some shady ego traits, to Sheeba Chaddha who gracefully carries a boatload of burden and suppression on her shoulders for decades and yet keeps doing what is right for her family, to Atul Kulkarni – the well-intentioned yet revenge-driven step-uncle, to Rahul Kumar and Kunaal Roy Kapoor – the resident comedians in a non-obtrusive manner, to Amit Mistry – the very supportive uncle with his own grief that he has been living with. Uffff, I could watch this series at least a couple more times to soak in the brilliance of each of these actors.

What I loved most about this show is that just like in Pakistani dramas there was no obvious villain for the sake of villainhood. Three characters had grey shades but all were put in context:

• the grandfather’s greed to maintain his legacy
• the step-uncle’s challenge to win back what was supposed to be his
• the mother’s iron-fist upbringing of her daughter to ensure a good future for her

Did they all do bad things? Yes. Did all of those behaviors come from a bad place? Not always.

One scene particularly stuck with me for how genially it was handled. It’s when Radhe finds out that the girl he is getting engaged to has come to India to marry him because her image has been tarnished by a compromising video leaked about her by her ex-boyfriend. The grace with which he responds to that situation and the even more graceful response of Sandhya is remarkable. Someone else’s wrongdoing ruined her whole life and yet she has not an iota of complaint on her face.

The entire show is centered around Indian Classical Music woven into the story of a family. Not many viewers might be familiar with this genre of music but the director did a stellar job of explaining the intricacies of it to the laymen to the extent it is necessary to appreciate the story. I certainly walked away with a lot more knowledge about the gharana culture than I had before.

For those of you who have been to Rajasthan you already know that it is stunningly beautiful but to put that into moving images consecutively for 10 episodes and really doing justice to it is a feat to be celebrated. Everything from the framing to the lighting to the sounds is so pitch-perfect (pun intended) that it makes you fall in love with Rajasthan all over again.

10 episodes can sometimes feel like a drag or at least someplace in between the story loses its tautness and you wish they’d cut out an episode or at least a few scenes. Not a single time during this show did I feel that way. Every episode had new conflict, new crescendos and more to look forward to. What a well-sprinkled approach to keep the audience engaged.

I am sure I am not the only one secretly checking the interwebs for news on a second season of Bandish Bandits. Who knew I’d ever be interested in a show on Indian Classical Music? (10/10)

Shakuntala Devi

Yet again, Vidya Balan strikes a sixer! We really need to see more of this woman. She gets under the skin of her characters so deeply that you forget she is just acting out someone else’s life. From her South Indian accent while speaking Hindi to the unwavering confidence of a self-made woman, the resounding laughter of a happy-go-lucky person and the guts to call a spade a spade I loved every bit of Shakuntala Devi…or was it Vidya Balan…or maybe both?!

Her genius aside, she was a woman to admire in a million ways! Throughout the story she is shown as someone who does not see a difference between man and woman, who repeatedly calls out society’s skewed gender expectations and who keeps screaming at the top of her lungs that self-actualization is just as important as slipping into a role assigned to you by someone else.

The movie tells a full circle story of her relationship with her parents, especially the grudge Shakuntala Devi holds against her mother for not speaking up to save her sister, how she herself becomes a woman with opinions and a voice that is literally heard the world over finally culminating in her relationship with her daughter who doesn’t think much of her mother until she becomes one herself. Very well fitted in between are two extremely well-told episodes of her relationship with a Spanish man who admired her but was intimidated by her success and her eventual marriage and separation from a Bengali man, who was a perfect gentleman.

What I loved most about this movie is that no one was shown as a bad character or – even worse – a villain. Shakuntala Devi’s husband, Paritosh Banerji, was an incredibly great husband and father and likewise she was a wonderful wife and mother but sometimes two perfectly fine people are also not able to lead a perfect life together. Their ambitions were different and they simply could not fit into the others’ life the way they had imagined.

Similarly, the two mother-daughter relationships between Shakuntala’s mother and her and then her daughter and her are beautifully told. Each is right in their own way, yet everything is wrong. It takes a skilled storyteller and director to portray relationships like this.  What a piece of art!

You might have noticed that I did not talk much about why Shakuntala Devi became a global sensation in the first place – her extraordinary math genius. It is present throughout the movie and shown with due respect but what’s really admirable about Shankuntala Devi is her grit and attitude regardless of what the matter is at hand. The way she approaches her relationships, her work, her decisions – this world really really needs more Shakuntala Devis.

This woman was truly ahead of her times! Even in today’s world people would be out to eat her alive but I am confident she would live her life on her own terms. (9/10)

Dil Bechara

Considering Bollywood has the magical ability of saving every one of its heroes fighting all odds at the end of every movie the irony of Sushant Singh Rajput’s reel life and real life ending didn’t escape me.

This was an ineffective copy of the 2014 Hollywood movie “The Fault in our Stars” and an unsuccessful health drama not coming anywhere close to the “The Sky is Pink”. Given Sushant Singh Rajput’s unfortunate demise this might clearly do well at the Box Office but the movie is flat in storytelling, doesn’t translate well into the Indian milieu and has wide gaping holes in character definition.

Narrated in a first person voice by Kizie the protagonist halfway through the movie the story becomes all about her boyfriend, Manny. How do they become a couple in the first place? No clue. It seemed more forced into the plot than a square peg in a round hole.

Copied straight from “The Fault in our Stars” Kizie wants to go meet her celebrity crush, a song-writer, in Paris but is disappointed once she meets him in person. However, the entire reason why she wants to meet him makes the audience question her sanity rather than understand her emotions behind it.

The pacing of the movie is slow, there is no depth to storytelling and despite it being a rather emotional topic it did not manage to stir my emotions a bit. (4/10)