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Release date:	October 6, 2017
Director:	Raja Krishna Menon
Cast: Language:	Saif Ali Khan, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Svar Kamble, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Dinesh P. Nair, Milind Soman, Sobhita Dhulipala, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Pawan Chopra Hindi

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It is hard to entirely dislike any film starring Saif Ali Khan. He has such a likeable personality and such natural ease before the camera, that he ends up adding charm to any project he is a part of, however flimsy or dismal it might be. Chef is not dismal, but it is flimsy.

Airlift director Raja Krishna Menon’s new film is an official remake of the Hollywood film Chef directed by and starring Jon Favreau, in which a once shining star on the American culinary scene has a meltdown when a critic skewers his restaurant. The video clip of his moment of weakness turns viral and ends up almost ruining him professionally. Instead of allowing that trough in his career to translate into a complete full stop, he uses the opportunity to find a new road and simultaneously bond with the son he had with his ex-wife.

In the Hindi Chef, Khan plays top chef Roshan Kalra who is plateauing and loses his job at a plush restaurant in New York when he hits a dissatisfied patron. At first feeling sorry for himself and angry at what he perceives as an injustice, he soon realises that he had indeed allowed his work to qualitatively decline. The customer, it dawns on him, was, in fact, right.

On the urging of his good friend and former colleague Vinnie (the lovely Sobhita Dhulipala from Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0last year), he uses the hiatus to visit his son in Kochi, where the boy lives with his mother Radha Menon, a successful classical dancer who was once married to Roshan. Without going into the details of how it happens, it can be told that like in the original, the father and child end up on a road trip in a food truck Roshan has decided to run.

What Chef has going for it is that Saif is as seemingly effortless as always before the camera. So is Janakiraman who, as it happens, is a hottie. Seriously, she is exquisite. Janakiraman is a pan-India actress with a filmography dominated by Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. She is not a known face in Bollywood though, which is truly Bollywood’s loss.

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Both lead actors share good chemistry with debutant Svar Kamble who plays Roshan and Radha’s kid Armaan. And in a small role, Milind Soman reminds us that there are few creatures in this world sexier than a well-built man in a well-draped mundu.

The thing about Kerala is that it is so spectacular, that wherever you aim your camera you will automatically see beauty, and director of photography Priya Seth takes full advantage of the picturesque landscape at her disposal to lay out an array of stunning visuals for our consumption. That becomes particularly important because after a while, Chef transitions into a road film, taking us along from Kerala to Goa and finally Delhi. What Seth does not serve us though are food visuals, a fact that turns out to be this film’s death knell since it is – wait for it – a food movie.

So yeah, Chef is a slick production, with everything and everyone looking good from start to finish (I particularly enjoyed Anuradha Shetty’s designs of the interiors of Roshan, Radha and Soman’s character Biju’s homes – each one markedly, and interestingly, different) but when viewed as a whole, it is an extremely frustrating experience. The joy of watching any road movie is to see the changing geography and cultures of the places the protagonists pass through. We get a decent serving of the former and a teeny bit of the latter here. What is truly unforgivable though is Chef’s lack of fervour for food.

It is hard to believe that Menon is not well-acquainted with the genre. If he was not, all he needed to do for inspiration and education was to look within Kerala, where most of Chef is set, and from where, just this year, Angamaly Diaries dished out a plethora of thoroughly exhilarating food scenes on screen, set in the roadside eateries and kitchens of a small southern Indian town. Alternatively, he could have sought out reference material from the film industry in which he operates. Although Bollywood does not frequent food films, just recently in 2013 director Ritesh Batra brought home to us the enticing sights and sounds of cooking in The Lunchbox– oil bubbling in a pan, the whoosh when fresh onions meet the surface of that oil, the crackle of mustard, human hands affectionately putting it all together. Forget these two films – all he needed to do was watch the original Chef for guidance.

Favreau’s film was not earth-shatteringly brilliant, but it had clarity about what it wanted to do and no hesitation in doing it. It told a heartwarming story, and was almost meditative in the way it captured the lead character’s intense romance with cooking. To see him slice, chop and dice vegetables, select meats and veggies, fry, bake, boil and roast, and then plate up as a painter would work a canvas or a dancer would work a stage was enough to get any normal viewer’s mouth watering and heart racing. That, after all, is the primary mission of any such film.

Throughout the Hindi Chef, I wanted to shake my fist at the screen and scream at it in anger when large passages went by with no reference to food at all, interspersed with scenes where people were shown cooking, serving and eating in long and medium shots, with little to no focus on what lay on their plates, the processes that got it there or their pleasure while tasting the end product. It took almost 45 minutes for Chef to give us an entire scene devoted to the hero conceptualising and cooking a complete dish, with the camera closing in on his ingredients, his methods and his invention. I am not even a particularly obsessive foodie, but the moment that scene was over, I immediately felt the urge to rush back home to my kitchen and try out that thing Roshan christens a rotzza.

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That is the effect that any good food film should have on its audience.

When Armaan tries chhole bhature for the first time and the camera gingerly watched him at arm’s length, I almost yelled, “Oh, for God’s sake, zoom in on that bloody bhatura, will you?” Somewhere there is a mention of idiyappam a.k.a. string hoppers, a steamed rice-noodle preparation with a coconut filling that is a popular part of Malayali cuisine but little known in the north – again, no close up. Was this the DoP’s failure, or did she take those shots and did the editor remove them, or was it the director’s call not to feature such shots at all? Whatever be the reason, Menon’s film takes the chefing out of Chef, which is pretty much like taking the music out of a musical. What’s the point then? Huh?

Raghu Dixit has come up with some agreeable background music for Chef, but his songs are surprisingly bland, with the exception of an up-tempo number called Shugal laga le that revs up the mood as soon as it is played. Dixit himself makes an appearance to sing it, and his introduction is one of the film’s most awkwardly constructed scenes. The other comes in the interactions between Roshan and Biju. Both appear to be the most hurriedly written, poorly developed parts of the screenplay.

There is some sweetness to be experienced in the interactions between Roshan and Armaan and separately between Roshan and Radha, some insights that emerge from the account of Roshan’s early struggles and poignancy in his experiences in Amritsar, but it is just not enough. Besides, the lethargic pace of the narrative underlines the flimsiness of the screenplay by Ritesh Shah, Suresh Nair and Menon. Ankur Tewari’s lyrics for Shugal laga le, “Ghoomey awaara se / Mere kadam jahaan / Bantaa gaya bas rastaa / Rahi miley jahaan bhi / Pagley manmauji jo / Badhta gaya bas kaarvaan” (Wherever I wandered, wherever my path took me, I made my own road / Wherever I encountered fellow travellers, crazy whimsical beings, the caravan got longer), capture the essence of what this film wanted to be and might have been if it had explored Roshan’s relationships – with the owner of Galli, with food, with Radha, with Armaan and with himself – in greater depth.

On the plus side, the blending of Hindi, Malayalam and English in Ritesh Shah’s dialogues is neatly done, though the writing team’s lack of research is shocking in a scene where a character informs Roshan that he knows Hindi, which he describes as “the national language”. Err, India does not have a “national language”, Team Chef. Have you not read the Constitution or the history of the country’s language movement? It is bad enough that Hindi propagandists work hard to spread this lie, but such ignorance from a screenwriting crew is grossly inexcusable.

This is not to say that Chef has nothing to offer. It is pleasant in parts, pretty almost throughout, and the cast is appealing. In the absence of heft and a commitment to its genre though, it remains an ineffectual film. A close scrutiny of the credits reveals that there was actually a food stylist – Sandhya Kumar – on the rolls. What the heck? Why bring her on and then waste her work? It also turns out that the chefs at Galli Kitchen, Roshan’s New York eatery, were all drawn from JW Marriott, including some leading names from the world of gastronomy. Umm, why bother with such detailing in the casting if you ain’t gonna show them cook? Oh lord, I want to bang my head on my table in exasperation as I write this.

Saif Ali Khan, who I believe is one of Hindi cinema’s most underrated actors, needs to choose better.

It does not speak well of Menon’s latest screen offering, that I felt the need to compensate for the deep dissatisfaction I felt after watching it by coming home and watching an entire episode of Masterchef Australia. To see Gary rustle up a simple plate of roast chicken with pea custard and fondant potatoes was a yummilicous and sensual experience.That’s what Chef should have been but is not.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	133 minutes 32 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/chef-movie-review-saifs-flimsy-but-occasionally-sweet-film-takes-the-chefing-out-of-favreaus-chef-4114951.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/ChefFilmIndia/

Release date:	October 6, 2017
Director:	Bejoy Nambiar
Cast: Language:	Dulquer Salmaan, Sai Dhansika, Arthi Venkatesh, Anson Paul, Renji Panicker, Sruthi Hariharan, Manoj K. Jayan, Prakash Belawadi, Neha Sharma, Nassar, Suhasini Maniratnam, Dino Morea, Deepti Sati Malayalam

(Note: This is a review of the Malayalam version of Solo. The film has been simultaneously made in Tamil.)

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Dulquer Salmaan is as hot as I imagine the planet Mercury must be. Now imagine someone bringing Mercury down to earth, cloning it to generate four blazing balls of fire and packing them into a single film. That is what writer-director Bejoy Nambiar has done in his new release Solo, an anthology of short stories written jointly by Nambiar and Dhanya Suresh, with DQ – as he is popularly known – playing the protagonist in each.

Too hot to handle? Jokes (meaning, that hormonally charge first paragraph) aside, actually not. Nambiar handles the central artiste in his cast as any director should treat a gifted performer: with respect but not reverence. Too many filmmakers ruin potentially good projects by behaving like fanboys rather than helmsmen. In Nambiar’s hands though, Solo is not star-struck, not designed simply to show off a young superstar’s beauty and talent, not painfully conscious of his presence or overwhelmed by it. Salmaan does not overshadow all else here. He is what he is and ought to be: an actor playing a part… well, four parts.

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First, he is Shekhar, a musician with a speech impairment and an interfering family, in love with a dancer who is blind. Next, he is Dr Trilok Menon who rescues an accident victim on a lonely road. Then comes Shiva, a violent gangster who is protective towards his little brother and roughs up the mother of his child. And Lieutenant Rudra Ramachandran of the finale is determined to marry the woman he loves despite opposition from her family, including her brigadier father who could destroy his career as revenge.

Each short is presented as a representation of one of the elements – Water, Wind, Fire, Earth; each character as a representation of that element as manifest in Lord Shiva, and bearing one of the beloved deity’s many names.

As standalone shorts, they work well. Each segment is well-rounded for the most part. There is a surprise in each one, but no twist feels contrived. When the realisation settles in, by the third short a viewer is waiting for an unexpected turn of events, but the expectation is not a distraction and does not eclipseeverything else that is going on, nor is any revelation predictable.

DQ is excellent throughout, pulling off sensitivity, innocence, cruelty and heartbreak without the effort being apparent. Each of his characters is styled distinctively (Shekhar, for instance, has long hair), but they are distinguishable from each other even without that because of the actor’s subtly changing body language.

The supporting players are just as good, and include stars in their own right. Veterans Suhasini Maniratnam and Nassar who play Rudra’s parents live up to their reputations. Of the young lot, Sai Dhansika stands out for her performance as Shekhar’s lover Radhika and because she too is a Mercury-level knockout. Anson Paul delivers a neatly nuanced performance as Justin, a man wracked with guilt at a choice he once made against the dictates of his conscience, as does Sruthi Hariharan who displays her substantial range in travelling from nagger to victim to sexual being to conflicted woman hopelessly in love within the span of the few minutes available to her.

The only artiste constrained by this film’s grandeur is Arthi Venkatesh playing an accident victim called Ayesha in Trilok and Justin’s short. The camerawork in this portion is painfully overt in its effort to present her as a cute darling sort, as if that was necessary to convince us that her death would be a huge loss to those who loved her. There is also something slightly discomfiting aboutthe focus on her body, her bare skin and her curves, before and after a tragedy befalls her. If the portrayal of Ayesha is one of the film’s lacunae, the fault lies not with Venkatesh but with the cinematography and direction in the few seconds that she is on screen.

This is the only place where Solo becomes self-conscious right in the middle of a narrative. Sadly, it detracts from the natural flow of this section.

The other moments of self-consciousness come in the unconvincing effort to connect Lord Shiva and the elements to Shekhar, Trilok, Shiva and Rudra, and to weave the figure four into the fabric of their lives.

The religio-mythological referencing in Solois strained and ineffective. It is also, if you think about it, unnecessary. Even without the great Destroyer of the Hindu Holy Trinity, there are common threads running through Solo’s segments: aloneness (which is perhaps why the film is titled thus), loss and betrayal – the physical loss of a loved one, the emotional loss that comes with betrayal by a loved one. These are thoughtful stories in which the audience must grapple with the questions thrown our way without answers being obviously spoonfed to us.

What, for instance, is the definition of human goodness? If a man hesitated over a monumentally heartless action and repented for it all his life, is he evil? Who is the better person: the gun-toting, trigger-happy hooligan camouflaging the great pain he endured in his childhood, or the seemingly polished fellow with a genuine grievance, calmly and systematically executing a plan of revenge? A character describes another as “a good man…not good enough”. Where does human frailty end and “good enough” begin?

These questions, ironically, were “good enough” to make Solo a wholesome film without the intellectual pretentions that rob it of some of its warmth.

While I do not have any favourite in this quartet, I do have a least favourite one, which I cannot reveal because it would involve a spoiler. When you see Solo you will figure out which part I am referring to here. When a man cheats on his wife, and his son asks, “Could you not find any other woman (to have an affair with)?” the Dad has the audacity to say, “I could ask you the same thing.” Actually, he would not be justified in doing so (when you know the particulars, you might agree), and while I can certainly believe that there could be such traitorous fathers out there who might ask their sons such questions, it is hard to buy this particular son’s silence in response to his father’s impertinence, considering the overall writing of his character.

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Also defying credulity elsewhere is Rudra’s army boss (Dino Morea) actively prodding him to indulge in silly, typical-Indian-commercial-film-climax-type behaviour.

Solo has a smattering of dialogues in Hindi and Tamil. While for the most part, it is okay not to subtitle them since it can be argued that we are hearing them from the standpoint of characters who don’t understand these languages, this reasoning does not apply to Shiva’s story where some of the Tamil lines are pivotal to the understanding of the main antagonist’s motivations. It would have made sense to embed Malayalam subs here for the benefit of Solo’s primary audience unless it is being assumed that every Malayali knows Tamil.

Like all Nambiar’s films so far, this one too is a visual treat featuring well-used music. Striking illustrations introduce each section. The cinematography is luscious, never more so than in the way it captures those heavily wooded country roads in Trilok’s saga. The greenery in those scenes is so delicious that you could make a meal of it. Each segment too gets a well-defined look without being too literal in the representation of jalam, vaayu, agni and bhoomi.

In each of Nambiar’s features so far, his penchant for stylised storytelling has been his strength and his Achilles heel. I still get goosebumps remembering the splendid overlaying of the song Khoya khoya chandover two parallel tracks of extreme chaos in Shaitan (2011). Nambiar always has an interesting point to make, but too often in his works, style has subtracted from soul. Solo has style and soul. The reason why the film pulls through as a whole despite the needless contrivance used to link its individual parts is because the Shiva reference precedes each one, after which the stories themselves are immersive enough and the cast engaging enough for the artifice to be forgotten till it rolls around once again before the next one. This amounts to liking the film not for what the maker meant it to be, but in spite of his intentions. So be it. Solois not a great film, but it is “good enough”.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	154 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/solo-movie-review-four-dulquer-salmaans-and-some-thoughtful-storytelling-overshadow-a-needless-contrivance-4118875.html

Poster courtesy:https://www.facebook.com/solothemovie2017/

Release date:	September 6, 2017
Director:	Phantom Praveen
Cast: Language:	Manju Warrier, Anaswara Rajan, Nedumudi Venu, Joju George, Mamata Mohandas, Abhija Sivakala, Sudhi Kopa, Alencier Ley Lopez Malayalam

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Writer-director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s Nil Battey Sannatawas one of the finest works to emerge from Bollywood in 2016. It starred Swara Bhaskar as a mother who goes back to school to teach her difficult daughter a life lesson. Tiwari herself remade the film in Tamil as Amma Kanakku starring Amala Paul. It is lovely to see Nil Battey travelling across Indian languages. The latest version is the official Malayalam remake with Manju Warrier, which is a comment on how impactful the original was if you consider that Bhaskar is still establishing herself in her industry whereas Warrier is a Mollywood superstar.

Debutant director Phantom Praveen’s Udaharanam Sujatha(Example: Sujatha) is faithful to its source material for the most part, with a couple of changes that merit discussion. Warrier here plays Sujatha Krishnan, the harried, impoverished parent of a Class X student. Athira Krishnan is a layabout who barely manages to scrape her way through exams. Her mother holds down multiple jobs – as household help, factory hand and more – to save money for her daughter’s higher education, an education that the child has no interest in whatsoever.

Sujatha is frustrated that she cannot even try to tutor Athira since she herself dropped out of school after flunking Class X. She is also heartbroken to discover that the girl has zero ambition since, as she tells her Mum one day, children follow in their parents’ footsteps so it goes without saying that a housemaid’s daughter will grow up to be a housemaid.

A kind employer, the celebrated screenwriter George Paul, suggests that Sujatha enroll herself in Athira’s school and class. Athira reacts with ferocious spite that may make an observer wonder why Sujatha is bothered about this nasty, ungrateful wretch. Well, she does. Good parents tend to be bottomless wells of forgiveness that no offspring deserves.

Udaharanam Sujatha is about this mother-daughter clash, the mother’s continuing struggles and how she ultimately dramatically changes their lives.

If Nil Battey Sannata was outstanding, in some ways Udaharanam Sujatha is even better. It takes courage to do what Warrier does in this film, surrendering herself to the part to such an extent that she obliterates her glamorous personality to transform herself into Sujatha of the garish saris and boring, practical hairdo. She takes a huge risk by doing so considering that she is a major mainstream star in an industry that values women primarily for their looks, and in any case rarely sees women in their 30s and beyond as worthy of being deemed glamorous, unlike their male contemporaries. Ah well, Warrier is used to making her own road as a post-divorce returnee to films, occupying the kind of space Mollywood rarely gives women of any age.

As it turns out, she is smashing in Udaharanam Sujatha.

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The beauty of the screenplay, Phantom Praveen’s interpretation of the adaptation by Naveen Bhaskar and the casting is that though the film revolves around Sujatha, it is packed with memorable performances by other actors in well-defined roles, big and small. Child actor Anaswara Rajan, for one, is so solid as the second lead, Athira, that I can picture her as an artiste of Warrier’s standing in years to come if she keeps at it. They are a perfect match for each other.

Of the remaining cast, Joju George stands out for his turn as the eccentric, misguided school principal who thinks public humiliation is a legitimate teaching method, and Abhija Sivakala is flawless as a coconut vendor to whom Sujatha owes money.

Nedumudi Venu imbues George Paul with empathy, sensitivity and decency, without defying believability. That said, and while it is always a pleasure to see the legend in action, the writing of George Paul includes the only disappointing change the Malayalam screenplay makes to the original Hindi story in which Chanda Sahai’s compassionate employer was a woman, not a man. The scenes between Chanda and Dr Diwan (Ratna Pathak Shah) were a rare instance of female bonding in Hindi cinema, which is otherwise brimful of stories on male friendship.

This alteration by Team Udaharanam is telling. Our cinema finds it hard to portray women as mentors of women or men, as thought leaders and agents of change in their own lives and the lives of others. “Man rescues woman” is viewed as being more saleable, I guess, than “woman supports woman”. It is highly possible that if Vidhu Vincent’s Manhole had been produced by a commercial heavyweight, it would have told the tale of the Dalit son of a manual scavenger growing up to become a lawyer who fights for the rights of his people, or – even more likely – of the Brahminfriend of the Dalit son of a manual scavenger... This is not to say that such men and Brahmins do not exist, but that these are the people most filmmakers prefer to focus on. So while celebrating the fact that in Udaharanam Sujatha, the female protagonist holds the reins of her existence, it is important not to excuse the switch from Dr Diwan to George Paul.

(Possible spoilers ahead)

Another gender switch in the film, on the other hand, is heartening. In Nil Battey Sannata, Chanda gets the idea to make her daughter a collector when she sees the local collector played by Sanjay Suri. Mamta Mohandas has been cast in that cameo here. One of the things holding girls back from pursuing careers is that society constantly reminds them to be good wives and mothers, but rarely prods them to work outside the house and be good at it. Female role models who have made it in various professions are reminders to these little ones that they can be more than what they are told they ought to be. Keeping this context in mind, Collector Madam in Udaharanam Sujatha marks a significant – and positive – writing modification.

The other is the introduction of a suitor. Sujatha’s reaction to him does not in any way indicate a sacrifice for her daughter, but genuine disinterest – clearly, she does not feel compelled to be with a man just to conform to social diktats that assume a woman is helpless on her own.

(Spoiler alert ends)

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Besides, the sore point about gender notwithstanding, Sujatha’s conversations with George Paul underline an aspect of class relations usually ignored (without ill intentions) in the mainstream liberal discourse, because highlighting class wars is such an urgent and time-consuming cause. Privileged social groups always have and will include people willing to stand by those from marginalised sections of society who are fighting for their rights. Udaharanam: George Paul.

Udaharanam Sujatha then is an intelligent, enjoyable, well-acted, well-written story about looking beyond the cards we are dealt at birth. There are those who might see this film as an instance of a mother forcing her dreams down her daughter’s throat. It is not. At the end of the day, Sujatha’s worry is not merely that Athira does not look beyond the possibility of becoming a housemaid or does not dream of being a collector, but that she does not dream at all.

This is not to say the film makes no flawed arguments. Despite its overall broad-mindedness, it has a seemingly progressive character perpetuating a widely held stereotype that is used to discourage women from entering fields related to Science, Technology and Mathematics: when Sujatha laments Athira’s fear of Maths, George Paul laments “the long-standing troubled relationship between girls and Mathematics”. Why the generalisation? Et tu, Brutus?

Then there is that incongruous closing line from Athira unwittingly dissing the work done by Sujatha and millions like her who perform a crucial function in keeping the wheels of the nation running. There is no indignity in being the household help in a home that treats you with respect. The larger point the film is making until then is that no one should be fatalistic, we must all have dreams for ourselves, and instead of relying on words like luck and destiny, we must see where sweat and toil may take us if we wish to be somewhere other than where we are.

Udaharanam Sujatha could also have done without that maudlin line flashing on screen right at the end about mothers being God’s greatest gift to the world. Not mothers in general, please, but the good ones. It is important and okay to make that distinction.

These are debates worth having because Udaharanam Sujathais worthy of being debated. None of these arguments in any way alters the fact that Phantom Praveen has zeroed in on a fantastic theme, he has effectively walked the fine line that allows a film to offer viewers entertainment combined with introspection, and he has done so with the assurance of a veteran.

Udaharanam Sujatha is one of the best films to emerge from the Malayalam industry this year. It is about courage in the face of poverty. It is about small joys and big dreams. It is about wanting the world for your child even at a time when the only treat you can financially afford to offer her is a packet of instant noodles that you gleefully share in your grubby one-room tenement. It is a thought-provoking, heartwarming film of immense sadness, laughter where you least expect it, and over-arching hope. I am already looking forward to Praveen’s next project.

As for the leading lady of this film, she is an udaharanam among udaharanams. Manju Warrier, you are a rockstar.

Rating (out of five stars): ****

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	127 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/udaharanam-sujatha-movie-review-manju-warrier-is-a-rockstar-of-this-nil-battey-sannata-remake-4121491.html

Poster courtesy:https://www.facebook.com/pg/udhaharanamsujathamovie/

Release date:	October 13, 2017
Director:	Sattwik Mohanty
Cast: Language:	Taaha Shah, Himansh Kohli, Soundarya Sharma, Jimmy Sheirgill, Satish Kaushik, Pitobash Tripathy, Anupam Kher Hindi

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Ranchi Diaries is meant to be a comic tribute to Ocean’s Eleven, with a bunch of quirky characters who get involved in a bank heist gone wrong. Writer-director Sattwik Mohanty seems to have a sense of humour that he might put to good use some day when he decides to write a proper screenplay rather than this lazily handled assemblage of scenes. I don’t know what it took to rope Jimmy Sheirgill and young Taaha Shah into this project. Maybe it did not take much convincing because these two talented artistes have been struggling long enough to get projects worthy of them.

Sheirgill made his debut in Gulzar’s Maachis back in 1996 and has since been seen in a whole host of films, though only a handful have been deserving of his naturally likeable personality and acting skills. Taaha Shah made his debut in Y-Films’ Luv Ka The Endco-starring Shraddha Kapoor in 2011 and has since then hung around on the margins of the industry. He is a good-looking kid with a screen presence, stuck – like his senior Sheirgill – in this meandering mess that aspires to be a film.

The activity here is set in Jagarnathpur in Ranchi where Manish Pandey (played by Himansh Kohli) is a safe breaker waiting for his big break before he can run away with his girlfriend, the ambitious wannabe popstar Guddiyaa Sharma (Soundarya Sharma). Unfortunately for her, she has caught the eye of the local gangster Thakur Ranjhe Pratap Singh (a decidedly uninvolved Anupam Kher in a role that amounts to a guest appearance). Thakur Bhaiyya, as he is popularly known, spends his time leering at her Youtube videos. The only way Guddiyaa can make a career for herself or escape this elderly creep is to run away from that town.

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Shah is Pinku, a local hooligan. Sheirgill plays senior cop Lallan Singh. Satish Kaushik is sub-inspector S.N. Chaubey whose most memorable scene involves him farting because he ate too much at a party. And Pitobash, who was so fabulous in 2011’s Shor In The City directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, is wasted here as a Naxal leader with hardly any screen time or lines.

So ya, there is a bank robbery, there are Naxals and there is some tomfoolery going on. At first the accents are funny, as is the stupidity of this entire clueless gang. Soon after the opening scenes though, it becomes apparent that Mohanty is as clueless as his characters and does not know how to proceed further with his concept. So Ranchi Diaries flails its arms about while the editor falls off to sleep on the job and the hapless cast does whatever they can in this whatever-you-wanna-call-it.

Guddiyaa is the brains behind the bank robbery in Ranchi Diariesbecause, well you know, as the overbearing voiceover tells us: “Har bawaal ke peechhe ek aurat ka haath hai.” (Rough, not literal, translation: behind every major problem, there is a woman.) In a less pointless project, I may have taken the time to join issue with that kind of backward language, but Ranchi Diaries is not even worthy of being argued with. The nicest thing about it is that it is just over one-and-a-half-hours long. Ideally, it should have been a 10-minute short with the song Godfather– which too deserved to be in a better venture – playing in the background.

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai, ki yeh film na bani hoti toh mujhe aaj subah dedh ghante zyaada sone ko milte. To be fair, Ranchi Diaries is not repulsive or puke-worthy or anything of that sort. It is just one of those thingies that makes you want to ask: why did anyone bother to make this? Seriously, why?

Rating (out of five stars): 0 stars

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	97 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/ranchi-diaries-movie-review-jimmy-sheirgill-whatcha-doin-in-this-whatever-you-wanna-call-it-4139201.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/MyRanchiDiaries/

Release date:	October 18, 2017
Director:	Advait Chandan
Cast: Language:	Zaira Wasim, Meher Vij, Aamir Khan, Raj Arjun, Tirth Sharma, Kabir Sajid, Mona Ambegaonkar, Cameos: Monali Thakur and Shaan Hindi

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Secret Superstar is an unconventional Hindi film in so many ways. It is that rare mainstream, unapologetically commercial Bollywood venture that places the spotlight firmly on domestic violence. It stars one of the biggest male stars in the history of Hindi cinema yet he is not the protagonist, nor does he position his role as a “guest appearance”. And while the gentleman in question, Aamir Khan, has done this before with Taare Zameen Par in 2007, the fact that just last year his colleague Shah Rukh Khan did likewise in Dear Zindagico-starring Alia Bhatt, and Aamir has made the choice once again with this film, suggests – hopefully – that we are witnessing a marginal change in the attitudes of our male megastars who are beginning to understand that the fulcrum of any project must essentially be its story, not its leading man.

Writer-director Advait Chandan brings to us 15-year-old Insia Malik, resident of Akota in the Gujarati city of Vadodara, where she shares a home with her loving mother Najma, her fond brother and grandmother, and abusive father. Insia is a student of Class X, a singer and guitarist who has been quietly honing her craft away from her father’s restrictive, regressive gaze and with her mother’s quiet encouragement. This is not to say that the Dad, Farookh Malik, is unaware of her interest in music, but that he considers it just another girlie hobby rather than an all-consuming passion.

(Possible spoilers ahead)

Those of us fortunate enough to be born to liberal parents who nurtured our gifts may find it hard to imagine the claustrophobia and extreme fear that Insia experiences every second that Farookh is around or how even the air in their house seems to breathe freely when he is away. Each tiny occurrence within the four walls of that cramped middle-class home has the potential to cause an explosion: a geyser that Najma forgot to switch on, less salt in the dal she cooked... Farookh’s response to any slip-up is to bash up his wife.

As you know from the trailer, Insia finds in Youtube an avenue to expose the public to her voice, all the while wearing a burqa to ensure that her father does not find out what she is up to. She is then sought out by the boorish and successful Bollywood music director Shakti Kumaarr, who is stagnating professionally when he meets her.

Secret Superstar tells the tale of Insia’s view that at the very least, everyone is allowed to dream – “Sapne dekhna toh basic hota hai. Itna toh sabko allowed hona chahiye,” she says – and Najma’s journey from telling her daughter, “Maine kaha thha mujhse maang, zindagi se nahin” (I had told you to wish for something from me, not from life) all the way to becoming the girl’s partner in the fulfilment of those dreams.

Although the physical abuse of wives and girlfriends is widely prevalent across the world, it is a subject usually brushed under the carpet. Communities by and large justify it or pretend it does not happen, and the entertainment media does not often discuss it. Bollywood has very occasionally acknowledged its existence, with sensitively handled films such as Agni Sakshi (1996) and Saat Khoon Maaf (2011), and the terrifying references to marital rape in Titli(2015) and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag(2013). Secret Superstarplants the issue unequivocally at the centre of its universe, building up an atmosphere of such terror around Farookh, that every knock on the door signalling his return home becomes a moment of dread, a dread so real that it is almost a separate character in the screenplay.

We must leave it to experts in the field of domestic violence (DV) to watch Secret Superstar and vouch for its authenticity and technical correctness. To my inexpert eye, having seen DV up close from my childhood – in the form of a beloved aunt whose husband beat her up throughout their marriage and who never left him, not just because she was completely financially dependent on him, but also because on the couple of occasions when she packed her bags, she fell for his emotionally blackmailing entreaties – it rang true.

That said, this is not a self-consciously ‘issue-based’ film of the kind a lesser writer may have created. While it is transparent in its desire to make a point, it does not rub its didactic intentions in our faces. It is also unusual in that it often makes us forget that its main characters are Muslim, which is unlike most commercial Hindi films featuring minority community members that end up being steeped in surface markers of the community in question. While Secret Superstar does not shy away from cultural specificities, the universality of the theme is never lost on the storyteller. With a tweak here and a touch there, this film could well have been about a Hindu, Christian, Sikh or Parsi family.

At the end of the day then, Secret Superstar is not merely about an issue, it is an entertaining, heartwarming saga of people and hope, of two luminous women who eke smiles and laughter out of their miserable lives, of a human being who is evil and another who flummoxes those around him with his unexpected shades of gray, of a child who could turn out either way with one wrong move from his better parent and of some female bonding.

That female bonding is a joy to behold because it too is not a common phenomenon in male-obsessed Hindi cinema. Most films on friendship in Bollywood have revolved around male yaars, from Dosti (1964) and Sholay(1975) all the way up to this century with the likes of Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Rock On!! (2008) and Kai Po Che (2013). Secret Superstar is, in some ways, a buddy flick. Insia and Najma are friends bound together by their shared pain as much as they are mother and daughter. And as the film moves along, the cliché of the eternally warring saas-bahu is tossed out of the window, as it was in one of the most beautiful scenes – that one featuring Priyanka Chopra and Tanvi Azmi chatting – in Sanjay LeelaBhansali’s Bajirao Mastani in 2015.

The performances in the film are led by Meher Vij’s brilliance as Najma. Vij played a small part as Munni’s mother in Bajrangi Bhaijaan(2015). She and Zaira Wasim – the lovely debutant from last year’s Dangal, returning to the big screen as Insia – do not falter for a second. Nor, for that matter, does the casting team which surrounds these two with a bunch of talented performers. A special mention must go to Raj Arjun playing Farookh: his is an even-toned performance that does not stray in the direction of caricature although such a move may have played to the gallery.

Aamir Khan as Shakti Kumaarr is hilarious. In case you think he’s hamming, you would do well to tour the industry he works in and meet some of its more pompous, ego-centric denizens who are convinced of their divinity, refer to themselves in third person in conversation and generally suck. On the surface, there is nothing subtle about his character, yet in the seemingly flimsy motivations that prompt him to back Insia to the hilt, there is a nuance that might possibly be lost on those who know him because of his largely obnoxious behaviour and self obsession.

One of the nicest things about this film is that most of Shakti Kumaarr’s story is left untold. Aamir may be the big star in Secret Superstar’s credits, but Chandan never once loses sight of the fact that his central characters are Insia and Najma.

My one concern about the film’s messaging involves Insia’s doting school friend Chintan. While this is clearly not Chandan’s goal, there are elements in their relationship graph that could be construed as pandering to the stereotype that women shamelessly use hapless men who would go to any lengths for the one they love. This is a fleeting worry more than a major apprehension though. That said, Secret Superstar could have done without the girl-finds-boy-irritating-before-they-hook-up triteness of its early portions.

A film about a girl who likes music, thankfully goes beyond merely packing songs into the narrative. Najma’s acute observation about Shakti’s songs, for instance, is a reminder of how artistic works can reveal so much about an artist to knowledgeable consumers who may not have a clue about the person behind that song, that painting or that film.

Most of composer Amit Trivedi’s tracks for Secret Superstar are not immediately captivating as standalone numbers, but viewed within Insia and Najma’s life they are perfect. And I do love Nachdi phira, both inside and outside the film.

Kausar Munir’s lyrics for Meri pyaari ammi and Sapna re have a clever everydayness to them, so that while you listen, you know they were written by a thinking kid yet you never forget that she is, after all, just a kid. Equally enjoyable is the deliberately silly mushiness of I’ll miss you, which reflects Chintan’s thoughts.

Meghna Mishra has been well-chosen as the playback singer for Insia. She sings with the heart – in keeping with Insia’s belief about what good singing is – yet does not sound cultivated, retaining instead raw edges that are so relatable and credible since she is the voice of a teenaged girl in the film. As it happens, Mishra is not playing a part. She is herself only 16.

Secret Superstar ends with a dedication “To Mothers and Motherhood”, similar to the words flashed on screen in last year’s Nil Battey Sannata. It is a maudlin and incongruous romanticisation of maternity in an otherwise wonderful film. The fact that Najma is selfless cannot and should not be a comment on mothers at large. Would Chandan ever consider implying that all fathers are as lousy as Farookh? No? The deification of women has always been used to conversely demonise those who slip and fall from their pedestal as any human being would, and has no place in a film as sensible as this one.

Before those words appear on screen, Secret Superstar rolls out a rather long climax. I can imagine some people considering the climactic developments emotionally manipulative. I am merely playing a devil’s advocate by bringing that up because, frankly, if that is what it is, I am happy to be manipulated. I left the hall giggling over the closing scene, but the tears had not dried up from the minutes I spent unashamedly sobbing over the denouement involving Insia, Najma and Farookh. Yes, some of it is melodramatic, but you know what? Sometimes, so is life.

I can also imagine some people being offended by the way Secret Superstar uses Insia’s burqa as a symbol of oppression. The prevailing mood of Islamophobia worldwide has caused well-intentioned feminists to mindlessly defend aspects of Islamic culture that do not deserve to be defended, going to the extent of calling the burqa a matter of “choice”. Chandan is therefore brave not to prevaricate over this point. And right. The veiling of women in every culture is rooted in the belief that the onus is on us to guard men from their actions when they see female beauty. Except where veils are worn as protection from the elements, let us be clear that even if a woman genuinely does have the freedom to choose, that ‘choice’ arises either from centuries of deeply ingrained social conditioning or a willingness to subordinate our freedoms to what is seen as a larger cause, such as the desire to snub Islamophobes by “reclaiming our culture” as many liberal Muslim women in the West say they are doing. The anger in the latter sentiment is understandable, but please let that not stop us from calling a spade a spade because of current norms of political correctness.

Advait Chandan’s film is a thoroughly rewarding cinematic experience, sweet and thought-provoking in equal measure. It is simple, but not simplistic (barring the ease with which a non-entity like Insia becomes high-profile almost overnight on the worldwide web, and the fact that she appears to escape Internet trolls who in reality would viciously attack such a kid because of her gender and her Muslim identity). Aamir’s presence has given it pre-release visibility, but what gives it staying power through its running time is the strength of its storytelling and conviction.

And a happy Diwali to you too, Team Secret Superstar.

Rating (out of five stars): ***1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	150 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/secret-superstar-movie-review-aamir-khan-zaira-wasim-meher-vij-starrer-has-eq-and-iq-4154401.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/SecretSuperstarTheMovie/

Release date:	October 27, 2017
Director:	Howard Rosemeyer
Cast: Language:	Richa Chadda, Kalki Koechlin, Arslan Goni, Sudhanshu Pandey, Zarina Wahab Hindi

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Zindagi koi aaloo pyaaz nahin jiski keemat hoti hai. Zindagi jis kisi ki bhi ho, priceless hai. (Life is not like onions and potatoes that a price can be placed on it. Every life is priceless.) You can almost imagine the creator of these lines patting himself on the back after having come up with them. The speaker is Kalki Koechlin’s character in Jia Aur Jia. The second half of the film is filled with such dialogues, trying hard to impress listeners with their wisdom. They fill up the empty space in a 92 minute saga that could have added up to something if writers Mudassar Aziz (credited for story and dialogues) and Farahjaan Shiekh (screenplay) had known how to flesh out their concept: two young women with sad secrets on a road trip through Sweden. After a mildly promising start though, they struggle the rest of the way. The result is a flimsy girl bonding flick that is so vacant, it may as well have not been made.

Koechlin plays Jia Garewal, owner of a small bakery in Panchgani. Ms Garewal is on a tight budget and hooks up online with a banker called Jia Raghupati Venkatram (Richa Chadda) to split the cost of a Europe sojourn. It is clear from the word go that Ms Venkatram is nursing a tragic past. Be that as it may, she is at first exasperated and then gradually charmed by the crazy creature in her company who lives life with such abandon while she herself is so stiff-necked.

It does not take a genius to guess that we will at some point discover that Garewal has a secret too. Jia Aur Jia is about two strangers meeting, and how one of them changes the other’s life forever.

Choreographer Howard Rosemeyer makes his directorial debut with Jia Aur Jia, featuring a lead pair with impressive credentials and an amateurish screenplay. Garewal is the film’s idea of cool and chirpy, which means she talks a lot, steals food from a café (this is not a spoiler, the scene is even in the trailer) drinks a lot, blows smoke into her roomie’s face and wakes her up in the middle of the night by chomping loudly on chips. Of course she is constantly smiling, laughing and dancing on camera.

In short, she is the standard Bollywood idea of cute, a cliché of youthful energy that we have seen in film after film over the years, the kind of person who would rightfully be considered irritating in real life, but who we are expected to fall in love with when we meet her on screen. Trite though the woman is, the screenplay leaves us guessing about her long enough and Koechlin’s natural charisma gives her just about enough likeability to keep the film floating through its first half.

Venkatram is completely boring, her past far less interesting than Team Jia Aur Jia seems to think it is, and Chadda – who was so striking in Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur films and in a brief role in last year’s Sarbjit– is unable to lend her character an iota of charm. Making matters worse is the contrived male character called Vasu Krishna Bergman (played by Arslan Goni) who is forced into the narrative.

Despite Koechlin’s verve, a kinda sorta curiosity the director manages to conjure up in the first half about what may possibly come as the story moves along, and some pretty visuals of the Swedish countryside, the film fails to lift off at all.

Jia Aur Jia’s saving grace is that it resurrects Jiya o jiya, the title song of the Asha Parekh-Dev Anand classic Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai, for its background score. The music makes the opening scenes memorable, but when the entire remix of the song is sung along with the closing credits, the effect is completely ruined: Nisschal Zaveri’s Jiya o jiya reprise – performed by Jyotica Tangri and Rashid Ali – is flat in comparison with the original. Jia Aur Jia is flat, full stop.

Rating (out of five stars): 1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	92 minutes 39 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/jia-aur-jia-movie-review-kalki-koechlins-verve-is-wasted-in-a-flimsy-girl-bonding-flick-4179077.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/JiaAurJiaFilm/

Release date:	October 27, 2017
Director:	Unnikrishnan B.
Cast: Language:	Mohanlal, Manju Warrier, Raashi Khanna, Vishal, Hansika Motwani, Siddique, Renji Panicker, Chemban Vinod Jose, Aju Varghese Malayalam

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“Nothing is black, nothing is white, everything is grey.”

“Life is a dark comedy, Doctor, you’ve got to live it.”

“There is a villain in every hero, a hero in every villain.”

As Mohanlal’s character Mathew Manjooran delivered these and a slew of similar English lines in this week’s Malayalam film release, Villain, I could almost picture a writer at a narration session in Kerala, reading them out to an admiring crew and bowing to expected waah-waahs. Whatever this review’s response may be to such hollow bombast, it is clear that someone somewhere was impressed, which is why this screenplay was greenlit and stars of Lalettan and Manju Warrier’s stature came on board. What were they thinking?

Director Unnikrishnan B’sVillain is packed with such pomposity. The wisdom dispensed by Mathew in Malayalam dialogues is fair enough considering the highly dramatised tone of the narrative in which they are set, but the English lines – given almost entirely to him – are painfully grandiose and stupid. And while the storyteller does manage to build an air of suspense around the murder in its opening half, after a while it becomes clear that this film is far less clever than it seems to think it is.

Mathew is a policeman in Kerala with a reputation for brilliance. Following a family tragedy, he decides to take voluntary retirement from the force. As he prepares for his exit, he is requested by his seniors to stay on for a while to look into the murder of three men at a building that has been lying locked for a while. They were killed by poisonous injections, and Mathew’s investigations – aided by his colleagues Harshita Chopra (Raashi Khanna) and Iqbal (Chemban Vinod Jose) – lead him to a mysterious creature with whom he appears to have a connect.

In the background, we are told the story of Mathew’s wife Neelima, a teacher played by Warrier, and their daughter, an aspiring doctor.

At first, the plot is intriguing. The moody background score, complemented by slick production and cinematography manage to conjure up great expectations about events yet to unfold. Mathew is a Sherlock Holmes like figure whose powers of deduction are projected as being at the level of genius. Unfortunately, they are not. Some of his acute observations are impressive, no doubt, but beyond a point the writer has him arriving at truths that require great leaps of the imagination which are never explained. With mere guesswork, for instance, and virtually no clues to support his theory, he arrives at the scenario in which the three men were killed at the beginning of the story. Later, he guesses young Harshita’s relationship status with ‘logic’ that, frankly, defies logic. This happens repeatedly in the film, diluting the fun to be had from his occasional astuteness.

(Possible spoilers ahead)Mohanlal lends gravitas to Mathew’s role, but his dialogue delivery, especially in English, is strained – not quite as bad as the 2008 film Aakasha Gopuram, but somewhere in that neighbourhood. Warrier is far more natural, but is given too little to do. Vishal, who plays the main antagonist Dr Shaktivel Palaniswamy does his best, but cannot possibly be faulted for the ordinary characterisation.

The link between the two men is tenuous and unconvincing. It leads to what could have been an important discussion about the meaning of evil, the definition of murder (can euthanasia be equated with a revenge killing?) and the value of dictatorship – the latter particularly significant in the present global political scenario – but the point is lost in a crowd of further pretentious dialogues. (Spoiler alert ends)

Villain is high on atmospherics and low on substance. Mohanlal and Manju Warrier’s charisma is wasted here.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	143 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/villain-movie-review-mohanlal-manju-warrier-starrer-looks-slick-sounds-bombastic-4182415.html

Poster courtesy:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villain_(2017_film)

Release date:	November 3, 2017
Director:	Abhay Chopra
Cast: Language:	Sidharth Malhotra, Sonakshi Sinha, Akshaye Khanna Hindi

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Ittefaq is not a remake. Its basic inspiration has of course come from the 1969 thriller of the same name directed by Yash Chopra, starring Rajesh Khanna, Nanda and Iftekhar (which in turn drew on already existing sources), but apart from a handful of building blocks, there is really no resemblance between these two films.

Here’s what this week’s release has in common with the original: a man accused of his wife's murder escapes and takes a hostage in a house where another murder takes place. The roles played by the lead trio nearly half a century back are here taken on by Sidharth Malhotra, Sonakshi Sinha and Akshaye Khanna.

Malhotra is Vikram Sethi, a bestselling UK-based author who is in Mumbai for the launch of his new book. When we first encounter him, he is driving his car down a busy road while a bunch of police vehicles give chase. He has an accident and disappears from the scene in a severely injured condition. Through a chain of circumstances, Vikram ends up accused of two murders, his alleged victims being his wife Catherine Sethi and a man called Shekhar Sinha, the husband of a woman called Maya Sinha (Sonakshi Sinha) in whose house he took refuge while hiding from the police. Dev Verma (Akshaye Khanna), who is in charge of the investigations, is given three days by his boss to solve the case, due to the political pressure from the UK government to let Vikram go since he is a UK citizen.

Director Abhay Chopra’s Ittefaq (written by Chopra with Shreyas Jain and Nikhil Mehrotra) has the audience and Dev grappling with one question throughout its 107 minutes and 48 seconds running time: should we believe Vikram or Maya’s version of events that took place in her house before and after Vikram’s arrival? I did not arrive at an answer till the end, and when the truth was finally revealed, it was not what I was expecting.

This is not to suggest that this Ittefaq is an oh-my-god-my-breath-just-stopped kind of whodunnit. One major irritant persists throughout and robs the film of finesse. (Possible spoiler ahead, please do not read the rest of this paragraph before watching the film) Although we are told that Vikram is well-connected and that the UK sarkar is pushing its Indian counterpart to tighten the screws on the Mumbai police, we see no evidence of this. Quite to the contrary, Vikram goes to the extent of speaking freely with Dev without once asking for a lawyer or being advised by friends to do so. Also, clearly merely in the interests of stretching the narrative across the pre-determined three days of its length (rather than that one night in the earlier Ittefaq), Dev takes two days to get Vikram and Maya’s respective stories out of them in instalments during interrogations, instead of extracting the complete story out of each at one go and then cross questioning them. This defies logic since he is otherwise shown to be a smart policeman who is often frustrated with his colleagues’ inefficiencies. Further, the cocky confession from the otherwise level-headed killer in the end, at a time when they could still have been booked for the crime, seems uncharacteristic of themand appears to have been timed to needlessly elevate the suspense in that climactic scene, considering that the person could well have waited for a day or two to disclose their secret without risk. (Spoiler alert ends)

Still, Ittefaq has enough going for it to make it an entertaining experience. Crucial to its effectiveness is the manner in which it sustains interest levels from start to finish with its crisp storytelling, Nitin Baid’s editing that walks a fine line between keeping the narrative fast-paced and unhurried (it is just right), and the excellent balance between silent stretches interspersed with background music.

Malhotra, Sinha and Khanna deliver credible performances. And Michal Sebastian Luka’s camerawork replete with close-ups of the three central characters, mostly in semi-lit spaces and golden glows, heightens the sense of mystery and lends an air of realism to the proceedings. The slip-ups by the police are believable since we are all well acquainted with the state of Indian crime scene investigations (look no further than the very public Aarushi Talwar murder case for evidence).

Ittefaq may not be perfect, but it is clever enough. Bollywood rarely does thrillers well. This one is not brilliant, but it is fun while it lasts.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	107 minutes 48 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/ittefaq-movie-review-sidharth-malhotra-sonakshi-sinha-akshaye-khanna-are-credible-in-an-effective-thriller-4191149.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/ittefaqofficial/

Release date:	November 3, 2017
Director:	Thomas Sebastian
Cast: Language:	Dhyan Sreenivasan, Aju Varghese, Sreenath Bhasi, Hareesh Perumanna, Niranjana Anoop, Vishnu Govindan, Mamta Mohandas, Alencier Ley Lopez Malayalam

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There are so many things director Thomas Sebastian and writer Dhyan Sreenivasan could have done with Goodalochana. The screenplay could have been crunched down to make a solid short. Alternatively, one element in the plot – the one involving an understanding of true art – could have been developed separately into a full-fledged feature. Or, the jokes in the film could have been extracted and turned into a stand-up comedy routine delivered by Aju Varghese, Hareesh Perumanna and Vishnu Govindan on stage.

So many things other than what they have done.

Goodalochana is about four men friends from disparate backgrounds in Kozhikode who dream of earning money and conjure up silly schemes to do so, instead of focusing on having stable careers. Varun – played by Dhyan Sreenivasan, actor-writer-director Vineeth Sreenivasan’s brother making his writing debut here – has a strained relationship with his father (Alencier Ley Lopez) who runs a teashop on a beach. Prakashan (Aju Varghese) is a painter. The group is rounded off by Jamsheer (Perumanna) and Ajaz (Sreenath Bhasi). Midway through the narrative the quartet becomes a quintet when they acquire a new permanent member called Sharaf (Vishnu Govindan).

The problem with Goodalochana is that it does not know where to begin or where to end, and once it sets off, it lacks focus. The film is bereft of originality in story and storytelling style, it wanders all over the place, and it is steeped in a sense of déjà vu.

The been-there-seen-that feel kicks in from the very start with inspirations seeming to range from this year’s Angamaly Diaries to the scores of boy bonding flicks Malayalam cinema has made in recent years. Female bonding flicks are still rare in Indian cinema, but male dosti (friendship) has been done to death worldwide, and Mollywood in particular has for long been fixated on unemployed young men hanging out together. Unless you have something new to say in this arena then, or something old to say in a new way, why bother?

Kozhikode is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but after a while, even spectacular aerial shots of an arterial road and surrounding greenery cannot lift Goodalochana out of its aimlessness. The only reason why the film is not a 100% write-off is because Messrs Varghese, Perumanna and Govindan can be trusted to elevate even an ordinary tale with their comic timing. Some of the dialogue writing is infused with comedy, and these three men in particular get the best out of those lines. Niranjana Anoop, playing Varun’s girlfriend Fida, though is wasted in a role so marginal that it is clear it was thrown in because a female ‘love interest’ is seen as essential to a formulaic hero’s completeness.

The only woman of standalone worth in Goodalochana, with an identity independent of the men, is an art gallerist played by Mamta Mohandas. She – looking lovely, by the way – headlines an episode that provides us with more insights into the lead quartet’s minds than the entire rest of the film put together.

Without her and the humour, Goodalochana would have been a zero.

Rating (out of five stars): 1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	148 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/goodalochana-movie-review-a-potential-zero-saved-by-mamta-mohandas-and-some-humour-4193013.html

Poster courtesy:https://www.facebook.com/pg/Goodalochana/

Release date:	November 3, 2017
Director:	Rakhee Sandilya
Cast: Language:	Kalki Koechlin, Sumeet Vyas Hindi

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Ribbon is not a neatly structured drama with an introduction and a conclusion. It is presented as an in-between. Sahana and Karan were around prior to our acquaintance with them, and no clumsy attempt is made to give us a crunched-down backstory. They existed before we knew them, and they will continue to exist afterwards – that is all the information available to us.

Director Rakhee Sandilya’s Ribbon feels like a home video of around half a decade of their lives: unpolished and achingly real.It has five names in the writing credits – story by Eklavya, screenplay by Rajeev Upadhyay and Sandilya herself, dialogues by Raghav Dutt and Manjiri Pupala – yet its brilliance lies in the fact that it comes across as being barely pre-written, and mostly an improv piece.

Sahana and Karan are 24x7 professionals with a plan that threatens to go awry when she discovers that she is pregnant. Ribbon takes off from this moment in their lives and takes us along with them through the dilemma of whether or not to have that baby, and thereafter.

On the face of it, it is a portrait of an urban marriage in 21^st century India. That though is a literal interpretation. At a deeper level, Sandilya’s film is about what it means to share your life with another human being over a number of years. Sure, Sahana and Karan are heterosexual, married and based in contemporary Mumbai, but they could well have been unmarried, they could have been parents or without children, they could have been homosexual and of any gender, or friends with no romantic interest in each other (or friends with benefits) who have decided to stay in the same house on a long-term basis for whatever reasons and defying social norms, or siblings living together. The beauty of Ribbon is that in any of these specific scenarios, in a city, village or town, the external pulls and pushes would obviously change, but the underlying theme would remain and manifest itself in the internal wranglings in the relationship in question – the silly misunderstandings, the serious disagreements, the ammunition fished out of past experiences during fights, the laughter, the coping, the leaning on each other, the getting along.

At the end of it all, Ribbon reminds us, because such reminders are constantly needed, that there is no such thing as absolute normalcy or calm in any home, and that while many of us may be happy together, none of us has it easy.

(Possible spoilers ahead)

In their first encounter captured on camera, Sahana appears somewhat unfairly aggressive and unreasonable in her anger towards Karan. Later though, as we witness her fears – expressed in that scene – coming true, we see too that Sandilya is not taking sides in Ribbon, she is merely showing us what is and how it is between these two.

For such a film to stay true to itself, it was essential for it not to become fixated on one or two issues – because that is not how reality plays out – and Sandilya does not waiver in her intent for a single second. That said, Ribbon does provide us with a bird’s eye view of several social concerns, without meting out superficial treatment to any. Gender discrimination at work, for one – notwithstanding favourable maternity-related laws on paper, anyone who cares to survey women in such situations will tell you that what Sahana comes up against is exactly what goes on in Indian offices. Then there is the stress of dealing with household help, and other blows and hurdles.

(Spoiler alert ends)

The stars of this enterprise seem to have left Kalki Koechlin and Sumeet Vyas somewhere outside their shoot locations. All we see are Sahana and Karan. Both artistes are so convincing that it becomes hard to believe this is not who they are off screen too. Ribbon is a demanding film, with the camera staying doggedly focused on them, and they do not wilt under the challenge for even an instant. We are offered glimpses of interesting satellite characters, but the gaze never shifts from Koechlin’s Sahana and Vyas’s Karan.

The most significant supporting player is a very young lady who is so well chosen and so incredibly spot on in her performance – if it can be called that – that casting director Neha Singh deserves special kudos, while Sandilya should get an award if nothing else then for directing her.

Crucial to the effectiveness of the cast is the deliberately unrefined camerawork. For the first 8-10 minutes, for instance, we do not get a clear frontal view of Vyas’ face. It is the kind of exasperating thing your cousin might do with a video of a family gathering, and with that the mood of the film is set. Subsequently too, there are no lingering close-ups or other sophisticated shots. The rawness of DoP Vikram Amladi’s frames turns us into unintrusive companions to our protagonists. It is as if we are hanging out with them and they trust us enough to let us stay.

Rakhee Sandilya’s conviction on debut is remarkable. Ribboncould be what Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Bhattacharya, Basu Chatterjee or Sai Paranjpye might have done if they had been asked to turn a reality TV show on Sahana and Karan into a feature film. It reminded me, too, of Krishan Chopra’s 1961 film Char Diwari (co-edited, by the way, by Mukherjee) which, in synopsis, can only be described as: what happens when Lakshmi (Nanda) marries Sunil (Shashi Kapoor).

As I write this review, a quote from Alfred Hitchcock is flashing on TV in an ad: “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” Ribboncontradicts the legend. It tells us that all life is inherently dramatic and what strikes the observer as mundane could well be transformative, traumatic and/or exhilarating for those going through it. Ribbon is a deceptively simple, remarkable film with a risky concept that has paid off. It is without question one of India’s best of 2017 so far.

Rating (out of five stars): ****1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	106 minutes

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/RibbonTheFilm/

Release date:	November 10, 2017
Director:	Tanuja Chandra
Cast: Language:	Parvathy, Irrfan, Siddharth Menon, Pushtiie Shakti, Neha Dhupia, Luke Kenny, Isha Sharvani, Navneet Nishan, Brijendra Kala Hindi (with a few Malayalam lines)

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A conservative young woman, widowed early in life and hanging on to the memory of her late husband, spends years allowing life to revolve around work and married friends who take her for granted. On a whim one day, she puts up her profile on a dating website. Jaya Shashidharan (played by Parvathy) is a successful insurance professional staying alone in her Mumbai flat while her younger brother – the only person she seems truly close to – studies abroad. She meets poet cum inventor Yogendra Kumar Dhirendranath Prajapati a.k.a. Yogi (Irrfan) via the site. On another whim, she decides to go on a cross-country trip with him to meet his ex-girlfriends and check if they still carry a torch for him as he claims they do.

(Possible spoilers ahead)

No one is more surprised by her uncharacteristic impetuousness than she herself. Dating is not her scene. It is clear that at some sub-conscious level she wants to break free of her own sobriety, but it is an old habit that is hard to shake off. Her confusion over her life-long sedateness can be the only explanation for why she takes off on a journey with a virtual stranger and takes other risks in this story that even the average adventurous Indian woman would not. It also explains why she spends so much of this expedition regretting being on it. Yogi is everything she is not – unguarded, sure of what he wants, speaking his mind, constantly laughing at his own poor jokes, so sociable that even a ride on the wrong train turns into a fun diversion. She has the appearance of knowing her mind, but does not. She says one thing, while her heart wants something else.

Most of what I have told you is already contained in the trailer of Qarib Qarib Singlle (Almost Single). Despite the sense of humour in some of the couple’s initial interactions, and the undoubted charisma of the lead stars, the film does not have much more to offer beyond the pleasures of that trailer. There is a kernel of an idea in there that could have been taken somewhere, but it does not come together as a cohesive, credible whole.

Froth and frolic notwithstanding, writer-director Tanuja Chandra makes a point here, although it is unclear whether that was her intention. In one scene, Yogi half-mockingly expresses admiration for Jaya’s feminism. Yet, the song and dance that is made about her lack of clarity regarding what she wants from him, treads the well-worn path of suggesting that behind all their bluster, there is nothing more that female feminists want than the comfort of tradition and a man. This silly stereotypical belief is implied and stated routinely in real life by those whose superficial understanding is that men and relationships with men are, theoretically, anathema to women feminists.

It is possible that Chandra did not intend to insinuate any of this, but the clichéd characterisation of Jaya and Yogi, no different from a standard Mills & Boon romance, ends up doing precisely that – not spelt out in black and white, but by implication.

Besides, Qarib Qarib Singlle’s lead actors Parvathy and Irrfan do not click as a couple on screen. It does not help that this supposedly off-mainstream film from a seemingly thinking filmmaker displays the same ageist sexism that we see in hard-core commercial Hindi cinema, in which 50-something male stars routinely play younger men and star with women half their age. The Net tells me that Irrfan is 50 and that baby-faced, chubby-cheeked Parvathy is 29, but in the film, Yogi is 40 (really?) while Jaya is 35 – an adjustment that has obviously been made to justify the casting. I guess it would be too much to ask this gender-prejudiced industry to pick a 40 to 50-year-old woman for a 50-year-old man, but Qarib Qarib Singllewould have been another film, and very likely a far more interesting one, if Chandra had gone down that path.

If Irrfan hit it off beautifully with Nimrat Kaur in The Lunchboxdespite their age gap, it was because the film made no bones about being an older-man-younger-woman romance. If there were sparks between him and Deepika Padukone in Pikudespite their evidently contrasting personalities, it was because their characters were positioned as an odd couple who were brought together by circumstances not of their choice, unlike here. Parvathy’s Jaya does not come across as a person who would naturally take to Irrfan’s Yogi, not merely because he is considerably older (although that would be a factor), not merely because they are chalk and cheese (though that may be a factor too), but especially considering that some of his behaviour towards her at first is creepy in its intrusiveness – the way he sneaks a peek at one of her online passwords at their maiden encounter, the manner in which he procures her cell number. Yet, before we can buy into their awkward pairing, they are off on the road together. It is all meant to be very cool and modern of course, it is just not convincing – more the sort of stuff too many married folk think all singletons do, too many older people think all youngsters do, and those who are not sure of their own cool quotient think cool people do.

On the technical front, considering that it is a road film, Qarib Qarib Singlle (QQS) fails to fully cash in on the picturesque locations it travels through, including Rishikesh and Gangtok, a stretch on the heritage train Fairy Queen and later on the Ganga. Must you dwarf the splendour around your protagonists to maintain a focus on them? A word of praise for two other departments though: Parvathy’s hair and make-up artist Ridhima Sharma has highlighted the actor’s prettiness without dolling her up; while Maria Tharakan and Kirti Kolwankar keep Jaya’s wardrobe attractive in a muted fashion even as they jazz up Yogi to amusing effect without turning him into a cartoon.

On the final balance sheet then, QQS is fun in bits and pieces mostly in the first half, but conflicted about what it wants to say and, therefore, tedious beyond a point. Parvathy – one of Mollywood’s most respected artistes, who has notched up a triumph in Take Offjust this year – makes her Bollywood debut with this film. The wonderful-as-always Irrfan has the advantage of a colourful character here, but Parvathy, playing the comparatively dull Jaya, sinks her teeth into the role and delivers a performance that is worthy of way more than the written material at hand. A salaam too to her fluency in a language far removed from her mother tongue – she speaks Hindi with ease and a charming trace of a Malayalam accent, the effect enhanced by the hilarious smattering of Malayalam words that dialogue writer Gazal Dhaliwal has woven into Jaya’s lines.

Individually, Parvathy and Irrfan are sweet in QQS. Sadly, that is not enough.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	125 minutes 28 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/qarib-qarib-singlle-movie-review-parvathy-irrfan-click-individually-but-not-as-a-couple-4202883.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarib_Qarib_Singlle

Release date:	November 10, 2017
Director:	Milind Rau
Cast: Language:	Siddharth, Andrea Jeremiah, Anisha Angelina Victor, Atul Kulkarni, Prakash Belawadi Hindi (The House Next Door was made simultaneously as Aval in Tamil, which was released on November 3, and Gruham in Telugu.)

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Unless you have attained rationalist nirvana, chances are you are vulnerable before a good spookfest. The House Next Door plays on all the fears we bury under our intellectual protestations against the existence of paranormal activity: the fear of what lies beneath our beds, what lies beyond that bend in the corridor, behind that closed door, or buried in the history of the house we occupy. Many of these unknowns have been used in the past, but the manner in which writer-director Milind Rau taps them is refreshing.

The centerpiece of the action in his film though is our subconscious dread of what stands outside the window of our home in the dead of night, in the house across the street, and in the darkness beyond especially in isolated suburbs and the countryside.

Obviously the goal of any horror flick maker is to manipulate the audience, but Rau does not leave room for a viewer to become conscious of his effort. Part of the reason is that his terror tactics are neatly understated, unlike too many screechy Hindi films in the genre. The other is that he scares the bejeezus out of us to such an extent that there is little mindspace left to think.

For the record, although The House Next Door is in Hindi, it has not emerged from Bollywood. It is a Kollywood film made simultaneously in three languages: in Tamil as Aval (meaning: She), released last week to critical and audience acclaim; in Telugu as Gruham (Home); and in Hindi as The House Next Door. This triad has been produced by its leading man, Siddharth, who has also co-written the story with Rau.

The film begins with a fleeting prologue featuring a Chinese woman and her daughter, who appear happy together before the audio cuts to worrying sounds emanating from their house. This is pre-Independence India, circa 1934.

Cut to 2016 and an attractive, perennially horny couple in the neighbourhood, the neurosurgeon Dr Krish (played by Siddharth) and his stay-at-home wife Lakshmi (Andrea Jeremiah). Soon, a new family moves into – wait for it – the house next door: the businessman Paul D’Costa (Atul Kulkarni), his wife Lizzy who is a stay-at-home Mom, their adolescent daughter Jenny (Anisha Angelina Victor), a little one called Sarah, and Paul’s Dad.

At first, the only intrusion in Krish and Lakshmi’s peaceful life is Jenny’s open flirtatiousness towards the youthful and handsome doc. When a character seems to become possessed though, all hell breaks loose.

Psychotherapy, exorcism, Christian imagery, Buddhist chants, a solar eclipse and sex are thrown into the mix. And oh maaan, what a frightening mix it is! The last time I was this terrified was while watching the Hindi film Phobia starring Radhika Apte in 2016, and before that with 2012’s Tamil film Pizza, which snatched pizza delivery boys out of the porn world and placed them at the front and centre of supernatural thrillers. Like those two, this one too is terrific.

The cleverness of The House Next Door lies in the fact that it simultaneously draws on our irrational anxieties, our embarrassment at our lack of logic while watching a scary movie and our hope that there will be a logical reason for the goings on. (Not a spoiler, but you may wish to skip to the next paragraph) The exercise is exemplified by a smartly handled scene involving a family gathering to address a senior member which, to my mind, was written with the awareness of our concerns for our children and the dreadful knowledge we would rather wish away, that some fathers are child molesters. (Okay, read on)

The House Next Door is packed with surprises. Every department plays a significant role in mining the sense of alarm it instills in us early on. Lawrence Kishore’s editing is fantastic. In a notable moment, a nomadic exorcist stands in front of the D’Costa home, his figure vanishes in a flash and the scene immediately switches from day to night – the transition is done in such a way as to leave the viewer wondering whether the man has magical abilities and actually disappeared, or whether he was faded out merely to show the passage of time.

Cinematographer Shreyaas Krishna lends an intimidating air of doom and gloom both to his intimate frames in closed spaces bathed in warm colours and his lavish shots of gray, grim open areas and any place outside the two homes.

While dealing with spirits, Hindi cinema has assumed for over a decade now that all it takes to startle viewers are loud audio effects. In The House Next Door though, sound designers Vishnu Govind, Sree Shankar and Vijay Rathinam know the value of silences as much as decibels. Their work is complemented by some eerie art direction (watch out for the sinister lighting of that large cross) and well-used music. The result is an unrelentingly chilling two hours and 20 minutes.

None of this would have worked without the strength of Rau and Siddharth’s writing. The House Next Door is not merely aiming at a petrified audience. The messaging woven into the finale is wonderful and unexpected, at first preying on our prejudices about outsiders, then smoothly reminding us that we are no better than the worst we see in other races. It is also worth noting that while Bollywood just served us its Christian cliché in the form of Tabu’s character in Golmaal Again (a woman who says “god” instead of “bhagwaan” even while speaking Hindi), the D’Costas here are a reminder that southern Indian cinema has a better understanding of India’s religious communities. The writers even go into specifics – the D’Costas are Pentecostal Christians. What a pleasure to encounter a team who bother with detailing.

And of course,nothing will prepare you for the traumatic climax or the explanation for the weird occurrences in the film.

The cast is uniformly good, though Atul Kulkarni must get a special mention for keeping us guessing about his character’s motivations. Model-turned-actor Anisha Angelina Victor is impressively credible. And Siddharth’s chemistry with Andrea Jeremiah is palpable.

(Spoiler alert by over-cautious critic) That said, The House Next Door is not flawless. I doubt the professionalism of a doctor who allows an emotional parent to intrude on a hypnotherapy session. The lesson the film seeks to impart is nicely woven into the narrative, but then, as if the director was not sure of the audience’s intelligence, it is rubbed in our faces with text flashing on screen that repeats a point already articulated by two characters.

Jenny and Sarah are also inexplicably unoccupied. Is Jenny a college kid on vacation or looking for a job? Is Sarah too young for school? We are not told.

There is one question bothering me. I get why Jenny behaved the way she did through most of the film, but without revealing anything beyond what is in the trailer to those who have not yet watched The House Next Door, I have this cryptic query that will hopefully be understood by those who have seen it: if those two were trying to protect them, who caused her to jump into that well and why? Think about it. (Spoiler alert ends)

Even if this is a loophole the team did not notice, The House Next Door is excellent fare for masochists who enjoy being repeatedly jolted in their seats in an unlit movie hall. The text on screen at the start of the movie claims that it is based on a true story. Maybe it is time you checked the antecedents of your neighbouring buildings. Who knows what ancient secrets they hold? Be afraid, my friends, be very very afraid.

Rating (out of five stars): ***1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	140 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/the-house-next-door-movie-review-siddharth-andrea-jeremiah-ghost-flick-is-terror-ific-4204857.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/THNDFilm/

Release date:	November 17, 2017
Director:	Suresh Triveni
Cast: Language:	Vidya Balan, Manav Kaul, Neha Dhupia, Malishka Mendonsa, Abhishek Sharrma, Vijay Maurya, Cameo: Ayushmann Khurrana Hindi

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A middle-aged housewife named Sulochana Dubey lives happily ever after with her husband Ashok and son Pranav in a middle-class locality in Mumbai. She failed in Class 12 and ever since, like a butterfly flitting from bloom to bloom, she has flitted from interest to interest, forever coming up with ideas for hobbies and a career for herself. The only constant in her line of vision is her happy home. She is as fixated on her family as she is on ensuring that the lemon does not fall out of the spoon in the lemon-and-spoon race in a local housing society, and though she comes second in that race, she has aced her equation with Ashok and Pranav so far.

Then one day on a whim, Sulochana decides to become a radio jockey, and circumstances provide her with an opportunity. RJ Sulu with her “sari-waaliaunty” persona – as the station head puts it – and seductive voice becomes popular with her late-night talk show. And of course life changes from then on.

Tumhari Sulu busts the myth prevailing for about three decades in Bollywood, that all comedies must inevitably be mindless (and male-centric). The first half of director Suresh Triveni’s film is an absolute laughathon, yet it is at no point stupid. Sulu herself is often silly, but her story is not. And – you will not believe this Team Golmaal– not a single character speaks in rhyme.

In fact, there is such realness to Sulu’s extended family, including her over-bearing though well-meaning twin sisters, that they bring back memories of the homes occupied by the likes of Amol Palekar, Vidya Sinha, Bindiya Goswami, Tina Munim, Zarina Wahab, Pearl Padamsee and Utpal Dutt, back in the 1970s when the aam aadmi (common man) was a pre-occupation in a section of Bollywood. The spotlight in Tumhari Suluis back on the common people, except this time it falls on an aam aurat (woman), a person this industry usually neglects.

After a four-year drought following Kahaani (2012), Vidya Balan finally gets a film that, though not flawless, gives her a character who remains substantial from start to finish. Tumhari Sulu also takes her into territory that she has not so far explored: the all-out comedy. It allows her to be funny while giving us food for thought, and Balan pulls off the role of Sulu with the skill of a tightrope walker. She and the film as a whole are so funny, that I choked in the first half and had to take a Vicks ki goli to soothe my throat. How come it has taken Bollywood so long to discover the comedian in this fine artiste?

Sulu could have easily been performed with condescension – after all being daft is second nature to her. But Triveni’s writing never lets us forget that behind the inane schemes and narrow worldview is a living, breathing human being with relatable emotions and, surprisingly, a head on her shoulders that usually goes unnoticed because of her in-your-face frivolity.

Balan matches the writing by giving us enough space to ridicule Sulu, but ensuring at all times that she is a person and not a parody. I laughed at the woman, but the truth is that I also occasionally felt guilty about my laughter.

The sensitivity in the characterisation of Sulu is paralleled by the writing of her response to the men who call in to her radio show: she makes no blanket assumptions about them, she cleverly and smoothly snubs the ones who try to take her for a ride, but is humane with those who do not.

Triveni also does not trivialise or stereotype those around Sulu: the young airhostesses living across the corridor do not visit her, not because they think they are too good for her, but because they are genuinely always exhausted; Radio Wow’s Maria Madam (Neha Dhupia) and RJ Albeli Anjali (Malishka Mendonsa) are justified in being amused by her, but they are never mean; and her siblings are conventional, but it is also clear that they love her to bits. That said, Maria’s patience towards Anjali when she screws up really badly one night defies believability. This is a weak point in the screenplay, and in that sense, the scenario at Ashok’s office is far more credible.

Comedies sometimes ruin themselves when they enter emotional terrain, but Tumhari Sulu stays the course. Even when Sulu, Ashok and Pranav draw tears from us in the second half, the film does not become so weepy as to get sidetracked.

The nicest thing about Triveni’s work here is that while he keeps his gaze firmly and unapologetically on Sulu, he does not marginalise Ashok or Pranav. The husband and son are well-fleshed out, well-acted parts. Manav Kaul is excellent as Ashok, delivering a performance that is touching and comical by turns. Thankfully, he shares great chemistry with Balan who has struggled for a while now to find a co-star with charisma to match her own. Kaul is a charmer, so is his character.

Abhishek Sharrma as young Pranav has screen presence and talent enough to ensure that he is not overshadowed by his seniors. He even pulls off a scene in which he has to read a slightly awkwardly written letter, a scene that is another passing weak patch in the screenplay.

The only inexplicable casting decision in Tumhari Sulu involves Malishka Mendonsa who plays RJ Albeli Anjali. Mendonsa is a popular radio jockey in Mumbai. Why rope in a well-known personality if you plan to reduce her to an extra, especially considering that her character starts off with promise?

Tumhari Sulu has a light touch, but it is not a non-serious film. The comedic tone, in fact, allows it to make several important observations about how a household gets disrupted when a woman who has been – conveniently for the rest of the family– home-bound all these years, decides to have a career. As Ashok learns, it is much easier to be an understanding husband when you know you can take your wife for granted than when she comes into her own and establishes an identity independent of her relationship with you.

Having said that, Tumhari Sulu almost ruins the points it makes – it certainly vastly dilutes them – in a bid to serve up a needless plot twist in the end. The effort to surprise the audience in an extended pre-climactic scene at the radio station is both laboured and transparent. It was an irritating passage, and as I left the hall, at first I wondered if Triveni was trying to soften up his position on Sulu in that scene to cater to misogynists in the audience. But no, his goal appears to have been merely to draw gasps of astonishment and relief. Why, Mr Triveni, why? It is a measure of the effectiveness of everything that went before this, that Tumhari Sulu remains worthwhile.

In any case, it is hard to stay angry for long with a film in which a plump, sexy heroine and her horny husband jump around on their bed in their tiny bedroom in their congested lower-middle-class house as he sings, “Bann meri mehbooba / Main tenu Taj pava doonga…/ Shahjahaan main tera / Tenu Mumtaz bana doonga / Bann ja tu meri rani / Tenu mahal dava doonga.” And which has this to say about its pretty heroine played by Vidya Balan in the song Farrata: “Chhoti si packing mein aayi/ Guddi yeh dhamaka hai.” That’s the other thing about Tumhari Sulu: the songs and the way they are woven into the narrative are hilarious. (Bann ja raniis written and composed by Guru Randhawa, who has also sung it, and Rajat Nagpal is a co-composer. Farrata’s music is by Amartya Rahut and lyrics by Siddhanth Kaushal.)

This is a story about finding the extraordinary within theseemingly ordinary. Every human being is good at at least something, and if you are among those lucky few who find out what your special gift is, hold on to it for dear life. Until then, you can laugh your heart out at Sulu’s shenanigans and feel a tug at the heart as you watch her with her Ashok and Pranav.

Vidya Balan and Manav Kaul are wonderful in Tumhari Sulu. And despite its exasperating folly as it draws to a close, Tumhari Sulu is a throat-achingly, side-splittingly hysterical entertainer.

Rating (out of five stars): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	140 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/tumhari-sulu-movie-review-vidya-balan-is-heart-stoppingly-good-in-a-funny-funny-film-4214123.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumhari_Sulu

Release date:	November 17, 2017
Director:	Ranjith Sankar
Cast: Language:	Jayasurya, Vijayaraghavan, DharmajanBolgatty, SreejithRavi, AjuVarghese, Sunil Sukhada, NylaUsha, Vishnu Govindan, Guinness Pakru Malayalam

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If this film had been made in any language other than Malayalam, chances are it would have been mired in controversy, political and religious hotheads would have asked for it to be banned or chopped, and it might even have been denied a release. PunyalanPrivate Limited has faced no such protests, as it comes to theatres just weeks after the Tamil industry and public slammed the Tamil Nadu BJP for demanding cuts in the Vijay-starrer Mersal because, among other things, it derided the implementation of the Central Government’s current pet project, the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The party’s silence over PunyalanPrivate Limited, although it references multiple contentious issues including demonetisation, should serve as a moment of pride for the people of Kerala in particular and south India at large. It suggests that Malayalis and the denizens of the entire region have built a no-nonsense reputation for themselves as a result of which a nationally powerful political organisation that has just burnt its fingers in Tamil Nadu would rather avoid being made to look foolish once again, as is most likely to happen if it messes with the cine artists of India’s most literate state.

This is not to say that PunyalanPrivate Limited (PPL) is a great film – far from it. Writer-director Ranjith Sankar’s sequel to 2013’s PunyalanAgarbathishas a weak screenplay that superficially skims over multiple social and political concerns. The protagonist’s actions are unconvincing and the events that turn him into an overnight media sensation feel contrived. Redemption comes in the form of its funny bone and its leading man Jayasurya who has such a likeable screen presence and such incredible comedic abilities, that sometimes all he needs to do is look at the camera to trigger off a laughing fit in a viewer.

If you weigh PPL’s pluses and minuses then, it is an average film. When even the average fare produced by your relatively small industry (Mollywood) has the guts to take on a system while one of India’s largest film industries (Bollywood) has for decades bowed and scraped before the high and mighty, you truly have reason to be proud.

Sadly, valour alone doth not good cinema make.

PPL brings back to the big screen the hero of PunyalanAgarbathis, a young Thrissur-based entrepreneur called Joy Thakkolkkaran played by Jayasurya. When we meet Joy this time, he is recovering from a failed business. He then comes up with the idea of producing mineral water derived from elephant urine and to be sold in tetrapacks. This, for various reasons, causes him to clash with the bureaucracy, politicians and even the judiciary.

(Spoiler ahead) Through a series of events, Joy ends up spending a day with the Kerala chief minister (Vijayaraghavan). This is not quite what the hero was offered in the Tamil film Mudhalvan and its Hindi remake Nayak: they got to play CM for a day. Here, Joy gets a chance to shadow and observe the man. The neta’s goal in providing such an opportunity to this troublemaker is to convince him of the travails of wearing the crown. (Spoiler alert ends)

How this comes about is of little consequence in a screenplay that is short on detailing. We are expected to buy into the hero’s every move and the consequences of those moves. There is not enough substance in the arguments he throws at the chief minister, but the public applauds him and Shankar seems to expect us to follow suit.

PPL skates along on thin ice and on the strength of Jayasurya’s comic timing. The star is further bolstered by his chemistry with the gifted actors who play his supportive friends and work associates – Dharmajan Bolgatty who is an absolute hoot here, Sreejith Ravi, Aju Varghese and Guinness Pakru. The result is that the film is peppered with laugh-out-loud moments.

While PPL’s sense of humour is laudable, what is not are the racist jokes about Bengalis. Before you say, “how else do you portray racist characters?” the answer is that the objection here is not to the portrayal of a racist reality but to the normalisation of that reality by a film in which no countering voice is offered.

(Possible spoilers ahead)

Since the saffron brigade usually claims victimhood, know this: the film’s anger is not confined to the central government’s policies and no party is mentioned by name. That PPLis taking on the political class at large is evident from the fact that Joy crosses swords with the two major parties in the state, and obviously, since this is Kerala, neither of them is BJP. Disdain is specifically directed at the state’s politicians. When a local man is taken hostage in another country, a Kerala neta is shown not wanting to help free the fellow, because if he succeeds then the credit would automatically go to the Union Minister for External Affairs who, we are pointedly told, is a woman. Hmm, now who might that be?

Further, while being dismissive of religious people who claim hurt sentiments at the drop of a hat in our country, the example used is of a couple of Christian conservatives who object to the use of the word “punyalan” (saint) in the name of a branded commercial product here, since that is a title used for canonised saints of the Catholic Church. Earlier this year, an RSS-affiliated TV channel had decried the dominance of Christian imagery in the highly acclaimed Angamaly Diaries. There has been no outcry on the church that is the centrepiece of PPL’s visuals, either because majoritarians see no reason to criticise a film that criticises a minority community’s nutcases or – and this second possible explanation should again make Kerala proud – because the social media knocked sense into them while lampooning them for that last review and reminded them that such visuals are most natural in a state with such a large Christian population especially in a film in which the protagonist belongs to that faith.

(Spoiler alert ends)

PPL is an equal opportunity offender, aiming its wrath across ideological divides, across communities and institutions, at demonetisation, the compulsory playing of the national anthem in movie halls, politics over women’s safety, poor roads, financial corruption and more. It is also often funny as hell. Now if only Ranjith Sankar had invested his courage, his liberalism and sense of humour in a script with some depth...

Rating (out of five stars): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	129 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/punyalan-private-limited-movie-review-jayasuryas-comic-timing-is-mined-to-slam-demonetisation-and-more-4216371.html

Poster courtesy:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punyalan_Private_Limited

Release date:	November 24, 2017
Director:	Nila Madhab Panda
Cast: Language:	Sanjay Mishra, Ranvir Shorey, Tillottama Shome, Bhupesh Singh, Ekta Sawant Hindi

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How do you teach a child living in a drought-ridden region the meaning of the word monsoon? An amusing early classroom scene in Kadvi Hawa, in which a teacher asks his students to name the four seasons, encapsulates everything that this film sets out to do: give us reason to think, even while unexpectedly entertaining us in a grim setting.

There are no easy answers in Kadvi Hawa (Bitter Wind, though the filmmaker translates it as Dark Wind). In fact, there are no answers at all. Writer-director Nila Madhab Panda’s latest work, on a poor family in a drought-stricken north Indian village, is filled with questions that strike at the heart of our understanding of humanity.

It is a story of what climate change does – and will do – to our species. It is more than that too: a portrait of desperation, for one. If a victim of extreme poverty, government apathy, the criminal foolishness of generations of human beings and other back-breaking circumstances, were to harm others in his situation to save his own skin, would you condemn him or sympathise? Is there such a thing as a right reaction here?

It has been a few days since I watched this film and I am still grappling with that discussion in my head, as I have for years since I read Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, a troubling account of the author’s time in concentration camps during World War II – troubling not only for the staggering scale of Nazi cruelty described in its pages, but also because of Frankl’s frank narration of the survival tactics used by some inmates.

In a different time and place, Kadvi Hawa examines the same harsh truths, in a world that feels more comfortable with itself if it can view victims of wrongdoing as repositories of unshakeable virtue.

Kadvi Hawa revolves around a blind old man called Hedu (played by Sanjay Mishra) who is worried that his son Mukund (Bhupesh Singh), an impoverished farmer, will commit suicide as he grapples with crop failure and an unrepaid loan. Mukund now sustains the family by doing odd jobs that bring in meagre earnings. His wife Parvati (Tillottama Shome) works from morning till night to keep the house running. They have two children: their schoolgoing daughter Kuhu (Ekta Sawant) and their baby Pihu.

Hedu’s fears are heightened by the arrival of the local bank’s loan recovery agent Gunu (Ranvir Shorey), who has a reputation for driving at least a couple of people to suicide at each of his postings.

Already, there are those in the vicinity who have taken their own lives. In this scenario, where nature’s wrath spares no one, unexpected alliances emerge.

When things go wrong, we all want someone – a person or two, an institution perhaps – to blame. Kadvi Hawa offers no easy scapegoats, no black-and-white rationalisations, but a challenging, absorbing realm of grays. This is an unrelenting film where even when humour rears its head, it does so to make a poignant point. Ramanuj Dutta’s cinematography underlines the starkness of the landscape, delivering Hedu’s land to us in all its blandness, as the dustbowl that it is.

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The acting – by the primary cast and satellite artistes – is uniformly solid. And the two leads, Mishra and Shorey, deliver towering performances that might make you want to erase from memory some of the more high-profile commercial films they have worked on in Bollywood.

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Although climate change is the overriding theme, writer Nitin Dixit (who is credited for the story, screenplay and dialogues, with Panda himself named as a co-writer of the story) finds space here to explore relationships that blossom in misery. There is such sweetness to Hedu’s bond with Pihu, for instance. And in their home, where tension runs high but fights are few and low-key, we sense a numbness camouflaging the despair the adults feel.

Kadvi Hawa could perhaps be seen as a morality tale, but it does not overtly preach. Although its climax walks a fine line on the subject of natural retribution that could be questionable in this superstitious nation, the film’s victory lies in the fact that as the credits roll, we are forced to introspect because the storyteller give us no one in particular to hate.

Nila Madhab Panda’s calling card so far has been his multiple-award-winning 2011 venture I Am Kalam, a sunny tale of a bright kid who is desperate for an education. Kadvi Hawa is a complete break from that film’s tone, but equally compelling.

Reciting a poem he has written on pollution for this one, Gulzar’s voiceover runs over the titles in the end. “…ye zameen darti hai ab insaanon se,” he tells us. This land now fears humans. Not governments, not politicians or industrialists alone, but humans as a whole. Kadvi Hawa is a bitter pill to swallow, and one that is designed to compel us to look within.

Rating (out of five stars): ***1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	95 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/kadvi-hawa-movie-review-sanjay-mishra-ranvir-shorey-excel-in-this-nuanced-take-on-climate-change-4225365.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/kadvihawa/

Release date:	November 24, 2017
Director:	Devashish Makhija
Cast: Language:	Sushama Deshpande, Smita Tambe, Sharvani Suryavanshi, Sadiya Siddiqui, Rasika Agashe, Sudhir Pandey, Srikant Mohan Yadav, Vikas Kumar, Abhishek Banerjee Hindi

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In one of this film’s most poignant scenes, the 10-year-old rape survivor Manda Kadam asks her grandmother if her bleeding means she has “grown up”. The old lady is momentarily thrown off by the question, then remembers that these are the terms in which she had discussed the onset of puberty with her granddaughter. “Is this how it starts for every girl?” the little one asks.

This exchange underlines the tragedy of therape of one so young. It is possible that the girl might forever equate the pain of gruesome violation with womanhood and with the natural pain of menstruation. This disturbing realisation also underlines a larger point emerging from writer-director Devashish Makhija’s Ajji, co-written by Mirat Trivedi.As much as Ajji is about a woman out to punish the well-connected man who brutalised her grandchild, it is also about the everydayness of sexual assault in the grubby back alleys of an urban space, where women and girls are attacked with such confidence by men whose shield is the poverty of their victims, that such violence could well end up being viewed by them as an intrinsic part of being a woman.

The latter is a point well made, and one that ideally should have been the overriding theme of Ajji. Not that rape happens only in poorer quarters, but the vulnerabilities of women from different social groups differ. Unfortunately, building a full-length film around this idea and around how real rather than fictional women react in such situations would require a greater investment of thought and imagination than vengeance does.

Rape revenge sagas like Ajji mirror casual drawing-room conversations about how we must kill or castrate rapists without a trial, and silence feminists who disagree. Like such films, such conversations too are rarely about what real survivors do, want or need. They are usually about the people around these women (cases in point: Ajji, Mom, Kaabil), or about society’s fantasy of the rape victim, 1988’s Dimple Kapadia-starrer Zakhmi Auratbeing a prime example.

Except in rare instances like last year’s Pink, Hindi cinema would rather not bother with credible portrayals of assault survivors, because women who weep at home but soldier on with life and/or go to court despite their fears are boring, I guess, in comparison with avenging Durgas or our collective illusion about the woman we now call Nirbhaya (The Fearless One).

Ajji, then, is a mixed bag of goods. The film begins with grandma/Ajji (played by Sushama Deshpande) and the sex worker Leela (Sadiya Siddiqui) searching for Manda (Sharvani Suryavanshi) in their squalid slum that is a stone’s throw from a red light area. They find her in a garbage heap and soon discover that her rapist is a local pervert called Dhavle (Abhishek Banerjee), the son of a senior politician. Not unexpectedly, the investigating policeman (Vikas Kumar) is on Dhavle Senior’s payrolls.

The story is moving and telling as it establishes the sense of helplessness in Manda’s family and Ajji’s relationship with Manda. The cop’s casual callousness, the disregard for due process because of the Kadams’ dire circumstances and the parents’ self-preservation instincts are believable and well done.

It is chilling, to say the least, to watch a male cop interrogate and physically examine a female rape victim, a minor to boot, and bring in a male doctor to do a vaginal exam. Those passages are designed to fill a viewer with disgust, anger and a shared pain. I could barely breath as I watched them. DoP Jishnu Bhattacharjee is careful not to be voyeuristic in his gaze on Manda’s body here, and Makhija handles the scenes with sensitivity.

The film goes down a well-worn, stereotypical path though when it acquaints us with Dhavle Junior and deals with Ajji’s quest for revenge. The rapist is not written with any depth, and Ajji’s plan is foolhardy to the point of being silly. Each time she is in her home, the film becomes relatable, each time she steps out to work towards her goal, Ajji acquires a slightly bizarre, noir-ish air. More than empathy with Manda, it gradually becomes about a fascination with this arthritic and aged woman who is as unlikely a vigilante as the sightless hero in Kaabil.

In any case, for a film that clearly aspires to be realistic, the stylised cinematography becomes a diversion after a while. Half the impact of a scene in which Ajji watches Dhavle Junior having sex with a mannequin, for instance, is lost because it becomes too much about how that scene has been shot rather than what is going on. This is not to say that the frames are unattractive, but that these particular framing choices may have worked in another kind of project, but here, in a film that desperately needed to focus on its soul, they are distracting. Equally distracting is the fact that no human beings are to be seen in the slum in which Ajji lives.

Besides, there is a weirdness to the manner in which Ajji stalks Dhavle. Clearly she is not merely tracking his schedule. Clearly staying on to see him achieve an orgasm on a dummy did not help her decide when and where to confront him. The point being made seems to be that she is trying to build up enough revulsion for him within herself, to give her the strength for that final act. Why? Was what he did to Manda not hateful and repulsive enough?

If the answer to that is a yes, then we have to consider whether these scenes were featured simply for effect.

Devashish Makhija, who earlier made the feature film Oonga, earned the spotlight just last year when Taandav,his interesting short featuring Manoj Bajpayee, went viral on Youtube. Ajji and Manda’s relationship, Sushama Deshpande’s striking face and screen presence, and young Sharvani Suryavanshi’s natural acting are no doubt worthy of a full-fledged film. Ajji, as it stands now though, is well begun but just half done.

Rating (out of five stars): **1/4

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	103 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/ajji-movie-review-moving-till-it-descends-into-the-cliches-of-the-rape-revenge-genre-4225821.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajji

Release date:	December 1, 2017
Director:	Rajiev Dhingra
Cast: Language:	Kapil Sharma, Edward Sonnenblick, Monica Gill, Ishita Dutta, Kumud Mishra, Rajesh Sharma, Inaamulhaq, Aanjjan Srivastav, Narrator: Amitabh Bachchan Hindi

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In a small village in 1920s Punjab, a youth called Mangat Ram (Kapil Sharma) meets a pretty young woman called Sargi (Ishita Dutta), when he comes visiting for a friend’s wedding. Manga, as he is known to everyone in his own home village, is a good-hearted chap, hard-working but unemployed. The two, of course, fall in love. Manga’s search for a job finally ends when a British government official, Mark Daniels (Edward Sonnenblick), hires him as his Man Friday.

While Manga and Sargi negotiate the tricky terrain involved in a romance in a conservative society, elsewhere in the storyline the ruler of the region, Raja Indeevar Singh (Kumud Mishra), is plotting with Daniels to take over Sargi’s village to start a liquor factory. As it happens, Daniels has taken a shine to the king’s good-looking Oxford-educated daughter Shyamali (Monica Gill). India is in the grip of Gandhiji’s call to boycott British goods, and some of the local people led by the Gandhian village elder Lalaji (Aanjjan Srivastav) have thrown themselves into the movement. Manga, meanwhile, has become fond of Daniels, which has driven him to believe that not all Brits are bad. Will he be proved wrong? Will he save his lover’s village by bringing Daniels over to their side, or will his simplicity give way to wiliness in a battle with the powers that be?

The period setting and theme of Firangi bring to mind Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan which again featured poor villagers taking on the might of the Empire through a clash with a single cog in its wheel. The similarities end there. Lagaan was not flawless, but it was brilliant in the way it etched out every single character on Bhuvan’s cricket team in delightful detail, making each of them memorable. Firangi’s uni-dimensional villagers merge one into the other and would have been indistinguishable from each other if it were not for the presence of several gifted and well-known character artistes among them, including Rajesh Sharma as Sargi’s father and Inaamulhaq as Manga’s buddy.

Besides, this is a film of broad brushstrokes and simplistic characterisations, as it ranges a bad rich man and a bad gora against sweet, golden-hearted, poor Indians. It was perhaps foolish to expect nuance from a cinematic venture that chose as its title a disparaging Hindi word for “foreigner”. The production quality of Firangi too is average. And at 160 minutes, itis also just too long for a film with such little depth.

This is not to say that it is a complete write-off. It is not. The cast is pleasant, it has a catchy soundtrack composed by Jatinder Shah, and even when it is indulging in clichés, it does not scream exaggerations at us. Daniels, for instance, is a one-tone villain, yet not of the snarling, fang-baring variety that 1970s-80s Bollywood favoured.

Kapil Sharma, whose claim to fame is his stupendous success as a Hindi television comedian, has been cast to break the mould here – Manga is not a comical character although he is occasionally funny. Sharma is the producer of Firangi, so going against type is obviously a calculated career decision on his part, and not an entirely unwise one at that. He has a naturally likeable personality and is fair enough in the role of a rural simpleton. Ishita Dutta is pretty, Monica Gill is strikingly attractive, and both leave an impression.

Gill’s Shyamali, in fact, is the only character in Firangi with some convention-defying heft in this otherwise paper-thin film.

Edward Sonnenblick playing the evil firangiof the title is the only one in the cast who seems not to even try to rise above the ordinary script. He hams his way through the entire film.

The closing passages of Firangi are completely predictable, except for one that throws up a surprise appearance by a person who contemporary India sorely needs as we are being torn apart by divisive forces. In that scene – naïve yet somehow appealing in its artlessness – writer-director Rajiev Dhingra pulls out the Bharat Mata Ki Jai slogan and reminds us that it was not always the disturbing weapon it has become in the hands of today’s nationalists.

Clearly Dhingra has his heart in the right place. What he also needed to have in place was substantive writing.

Rating (out of five stars): *

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	160 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/firangi-movie-review-kapil-sharma-is-fair-enough-in-a-paper-thin-film-4237103.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firangi

Release date:	December 1, 2017
Director:	Domin D’Silva
Cast: Language:	Neeraj Madhav, Reeba Monica John, Sudhi Koppa, Sarath Kumar, Dharmajan Bolgatty, Aju Varghese, Rishi Kumar, Thesni Khan, Indrans Malayalam

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There has been what readers of Western literature might consider a Gabriel Garcia Marquez-ness to the titles of many films rolling out of Mollywood over the years. The latest poetic moniker is debutant director Domin D’Silva’s Paipin Chuvattile Pranayam, Love by the (Water) Pipes, a story of romance blossoming in a seemingly impossible socio-economic situation.

Paipin Chuvattile Pranayam is set on Pandarathuruthu, which is facing a severe water shortage despite being surrounded by a kaayal on all sides. The polluted lake water is unfit for drinking. This one factor pervades every aspect of the local populace’s life, with fights at the community tap a common occurrence, parents seeing marriage as an escape from this hellhole for their daughters and families from elsewhere averse to marital alliances with the men of this village.

Pandarathuruth lies a universe away from the city just on the other side of the lake. It is the sort of place media bosses and politicians ignore. In this dismal scenario, we meet Govindankutty / Govutty (Neeraj Madhav), a hard-working and resourceful young fellow who earns a living from freelance painting jobs, fishing and assignments for his dance troupe comprising local youth.

Govutty and Teena (Reeba Monica John) are in love, but her parents are opposed to the relationship. Paipin Chuvattile Pranayam is about love surviving overwhelming odds, laughter thriving in a forbidding setting, the human capacity for optimism even when tragedy strikes, and the water wars we should be prepared for if we do not heed glaring warning signs.

Environmental degradation is a depressing subject, yet somehow, without trivialising the issues at hand, D’Silva manages to give his film a consistently light touch. By foregrounding Govutty’s relationship with his buddies and his romance with Teena, the writer-director cleverly ensures that this remains a relatable even if educative human story rather than an esoteric documentary.

Complementing his intelligent screenplay (co-written with Antony Jibin) is a sturdy cast, an atmospheric soundtrack and thoughtful cinematography.

Neeraj Madhav, for whom Paipin is his first screen outing as the solo male lead, justifies the director’s confidence in him. He carries the film on his able shoulders from start to finish without flinching for a moment. He is a proficient actor, a sweet-looking man and a good dancer.

In fact, it was clever of the screenplay to assign dancing as a talent to Govutty, since this gives the film the opportunity to tap Madhav’s natural skills and makes an important plot point (involving a citizens’ protest) believable. When Govutty’s group gets a high-profile platform in the state, choreographer Sreejith Dancity gives them impressive moves with just enough rough edges to make them credible as coming from a team lacking exposure and professional training.

Since Paipin Chuvattile Pranayamexists on a male-dominated planet – as does most Malayalam cinema, including many otherwise lovely films where scene after scene passes by without a woman in sight – Teena is not given much to do apart from just being there. Despite this, Reeba Monica John makes an impression with whatever little the limited characterisation allows her to do. (For the record, she is a stunner.)

This is not about giving characters screen time alone. It is about writing them with depth. Govutty’s feisty grandmother, for instance, is not visible as often as Teena, yet she is well fleshed out (and well acted) and memorable because of that.

To be fair to D’Silva, this folly in the script cannot be blamed on the male gaze alone. Govutty’s friend Ayyappa is a wholesome character – excellently acted by Sudhi Koppa – but Rishi Kumar’s character has recall value for the actor’s voluminous Afro hairstyle and nothing else, and the younger boy pals for not even that. One thing that can certainly be blamed on the male gaze though is the sexualisation of the little girl who is followed around and gaped at by those boys, and is shown enjoying the attention. She looks like she could be a pre-teen, they are not much older. Even if such behaviour does exist in reality, please stop projecting it as cute. It is not. Not only are these brief scenes an absolutely needless aside, they are also disappointing considering that D’Silva & Co manage to portray the Govutty-Teena relationship without a hint of stalking or leering – male behaviour that is normalised in too many other Malayalam films.

Paipin Chuvattile Pranayam is technically refined. DoP Pavi K. Pavan captures the beautiful locale in all its visual glory, yet his matter-of-fact, un-self-conscious style ensures that the camerawork never diverts our gaze from the people at the heart of this tale.

Bijibal has notched up yet another winner with his music for Paipin Chuvattile Pranayam. Although his songs for Maheshinte Prathikaaram remain the jewel in his crown, this lot is pretty neat too. In fact, the melodic title track – with remarkably conversational lyrics by B.K. Harinarayanan – is a perfect précis of the plight of Pandarathuruthu. Kaathu Kaathittu and its instrumental arrangements are lots of fun. I am not so fond of Kayalirambilu, but it fits well into the film. These songs are not interruptions but serve to take the narrative forward.

These are the reasons why the journey up to the climax is so rewarding and insightful, and it is possible to excuse the pat, simplistic and therefore implausible ending perhaps designed to make the film more viable at the box-office than if the climax had been open-ended or ugly. Paipin Chuvattile Pranayam is a sweetly sad film that transports the viewer to its world and provides a convincing portrait of the social milieu it inhabits. It also adds Domin D’Silva’s name to the list featuring the likes of Dileesh Pothan,Althaf Salimand Lijo Jose Pellissery who are redefining commercial Malayalam cinema.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	134 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/paipin-chuvattile-pranayam-movie-review-neeraj-madhavs-solo-hero-debut-is-a-sweetly-sad-eco-film-4238725.html

Poster courtesy:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6208374/

Release date:	December 8, 2017
Director:	Mrighdeep Singh Lamba
Cast: Language:	Varun Sharma, Pulkit Samrat, Richa Chadda, Ali Fazal, Manjot Singh, Priya Anand, Vishakha Singh, Pankaj Tripathi Hindi

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Hunnny, Chuchcha, Zafar, Laali and Bholi Punjaban are back. They are as nutty as they were the first time we met them in 2013’s sleeper hit Fukreyproduced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani. Back then, however, the refreshing naturalness with which Mrighdeep Singh Lamba portrayed them and the director’s ownevident understanding of middle-class Delhi were good enough reasons to forgive that thoroughly enjoyable film its slightness. In retrospect though, Fukrey feels profound in comparison with Fukrey Returns. The novelty has worn off by now, and Lamba is so busy sitting on his laurels that he does not bother to come up with a semblance of a credible plot for the sequel. Since his sense of humour remains intact, what we get is a hollow film that feels like a series of hilarious jokes strung together.

Life has somewhat settled down since the boys were introduced to audiences. Hunnny (Pulkit Samrat) now runs a business and is in a comfortably happy relationship with his girlfriend Priya (Priya Anand). Zafar (Ali Fazal) is a successful singer and is moving in with Neetu (Vishakha Singh). Laali (Manjot Singh) still longs to free himself of his mithai-shop-owning father and still yearns for a woman to fall in love with. And Chuchcha (Varun Sharma) is dreaming dreams.

When the gangsta Bholi Punjaban (Richa Chadda) gets out of jail and confronts them over the financial losses they have caused her, the four get stuck in a scheme to make a few crores overnight. Of course things go awry. Of course they run around in circles, giving them time for scene after comic scene. And of course everything is sorted out in the end.

The story – if it can be called that – revolves around the premonitions encased in Chuchcha’s dreams. Add a powerful politician (Rajiv Gupta) to that mix, a zoo, a tiger and a tiger cub, and the result is a motley assortment of ingredients that do not at any point come together as a smooth blend.

For one, Zafar and Laali are completely irrelevant and nothing would change without them. They have so little to do in Fukrey Returnsthat they look like hangers-on who were retained simply because they happened to be in the first one. This is the film’s loss because Ali Fazal and Manjot Singh are both capable actors.

Priya and Neetu, who were largely responsible for giving Fukreywhatever little depth it had, are even more marginal than these two gentlemen. They disappear through most of the film and resurface for one madcap ride towards the end, for no particular reason other than that Lamba perhaps wanted to assemble the entire cast, Priyadarshan-style, for the climactic moments. This too is the film’s loss because Priya Anand and Vishakha Singh have both proved their mettle as artists in their brief filmographies.

It speaks poorly of the screenplay that four characters could be entirely dispensed with and it would make nary a difference to the storyline or the narrative.

Chadda as Bholi Punjaban fares a little better, not a lot. The problem with her has more to do with the somewhat zestless acting than the writing though. Gupta, who has been lovely in other films, is given little to chew on here but pulls through. Pankaj Tripathi deserves applause for his value additions to the ordinary writing – with a look here, a gesture there, an amusing posture elsewhere, he manages to make a mark with a barely defined character.

Fukrey Returns’ screenplay has invested itself in one role and one role alone, and that role ends up being the only reason for its survival: Chuchcha remains laugh-out-loud, hold-your-stomach-or-it-will-hurt funny and Varun Sharma is hysterical. The actor’s flawless comic timing makes every moment with his character a fun ride. Even when the humour gets more slapstick in tone than Fukrey and becomes physical, it steers clear of being crass for the most part. I confess to feeling uneasy with a scene in which a firecracker pierces a man’s bottom, but that requires a separate and very long discussion that we have not even begun to have in our country as of now.

(Note: The story, screenplay and dialogues of Fukrey Returns are by Vipul Vig. Lamba has been credited for “additional dialogue and screenplay”.)

Sharma’s killer comic talent and the lines he has been given are the driving force of Fukrey Returns. Pretty much everything else about it is listless. Even the presence of a tiger and a cub on screenhave not been sufficiently mined for effect.

Make a film around Sharma/Chuchcha, if you wish, Mr Lamba. If you do intend to bring back the rest of Team Fukrey in a third venture though, please remember not to neglect them as you have done in this one. The consequence of that neglect is that Fukrey Returns is funny but its gnawing hollowness is impossible to ignore. It may as well have been a stand-up comedy showheadlined by Varun Sharma instead of a film.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	131 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/fukrey-returns-movie-review-this-richa-chadha-varun-sharma-starrer-is-funny-but-hollow-4248339.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukrey_Returns

Release date:	December 15, 2017
Director:	Amit Kumar
Cast: Language:	Vijay Varma, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Neeraj Kabi, Geetanjali, Farhan Mohammad Hanif Shaikh, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Onkar Das Manikpuri Hindi

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A young man is leaving for work on the first day of his career as a police officer. His mother reminds him of his late policeman father’s dictum: “There are three paths in life – the right path, the wrong path and the middle path.” To this he, Sub Inspector Adi Kulshreshtha, adds: “…and the day I find my own path, I will have peace of mind.” He remembers too Dad’s cautionary note that the choice will not be easy.

Adi faces one such moral dilemma early on. On a rainy night in the skinny bylanes of a Mumbai slum cluster, he is chasing a murder suspect when they confront each other at a dead end. Many stories have already been told about forks in the road and the what-ifs that might unfold (or might have unfolded) depending on the turn you take. The enjoyment in watching director Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout comes from the fact that he does not just lay out a series of ethical, unethical and gray-area options before us to create suspense, but that in painting each possible scenario, he also raises multiple questions about our motivations for going with one or the other. Do you, for instance, pick the right, wrong or middle path based on the dictates of your conscience or based on the rewards you expect to reap from your actions? If all three paths cause you the same suffering or bear the same fruit, would you bother with the one you deem right?

As the audience and hero grapple with these quandaries, Monsoon Shootout becomes an interesting combination of suspense thriller and modern morality tale.

Kumar’s film has been in the public eye for several years now. It was premiered at Cannes in 2013 and – oddly, considering the commercial potential of the material and a marquee name like Anurag Kashyap among its producers – has taken four years to come to mainstream theatres in India. Thankfully, it is none the worse for the wear.

Monsoon Shootout’s on-point casting is one of its victories. Vijay Varma provides ample proof of his chameleon-like abilities by metamorphosing into an innocent youngster with carefully calibrated reactions who is just feeling his way around life, in sharp contrast to the worldly wise, repugnant predator he played in Pink last year or the hero’s combustible friend Pakiya in the lesser knownRangrezz.

The questions confronting Adi are fascinating, but the character itself is somewhat bland. That cannot be said of the alleged axe murderer Shiva (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and Adi’s boss Khan (Neeraj Kabi) who remain attractively mysterious at all times. Siddiqui manages to make Shiva marginally less or more menacing without any evident effort in each of the four alternative episodes narrated in the film. In many of his earlier works, he has summoned up that trademark mischievous look in his eyes to give evil or irreverent characters an edge. Here that alluring glint is gone. There is no smile to charm us, just a hardness that softens microscopically with each telling.

By not trying to be either likeable or repulsive to us, Kabi – who was simply electric as a priest in Ship of Theseus– ensures that with each version of Adi’s tale, we begin to understand Khan just that little bit more. Not like or dislike him, but understand what makes him tick.

Adi’s doctor friend Anu played by the very striking Geetanjali Thapa (National Award winner for Liar’s Dice, credited here as only Geetanjali) left me asking for more from the writing though. The nature of this film is such that no character gets the in-depth treatment meted out to Adi, which is fair enough, but Anu is the only central character who feels superficial.

In fact, all the women in Monsoon Shootout operate on the sidelines of Adi’s existence. Their actions barely impact the main premise of this story, unlike the men whose life choices are crucial to Adi’s decisions and who decisively take centrestage at points in the narrative.

Geetanjali manages to be memorable despite her rather vanilla role.

Monsoon Shootout is filled to the brim with action and feels appropriately trim at barely 1.5 hours running time. Rajeev Ravi’s intimate, low-lit frames and the background score by Atif Afzal and Gingger Shankar add to the film’s intensity, with the camera offering us a persistent blast of light and space in only two scenes: a murder in the beginning and a fake encounter.

Considering its setting, it is natural that the film is steeped in violence yet at no point is it in-your-face gratuitously bloody. Atanu Mukherjee and Ewa Lind’s editing complements Amit Kumar’s smart writing such that though I occasionally needed to mentally retrace my steps through the narrative to recall when one version of Adi’s what-if ended and the next began, far from being confusing the effort added to the level of involvement in Monsoon Shootout.

In the past couple of decades, too many Hindi gangster films have smacked of a desire to impress with coolth, a desire to be ‘international’ (read: draw from the gangs of Martin Scorcese and Quentin Tarantino) or to borrow Ram Gopal Varma and Anurag Kashyap’s voices. Amit Kumar may well be inspired by these gentlemen, but his storytelling style in Monsoon Shootoutreveals a rootedness in his own individuality. He particularly distinguishes his adventure from Varma and Kashyap’s filmography by not dipping too much into the specifics of a local cultural milieu and lingo and by not opting for highly stylised stunt choreography, but staying unwaveringly focused instead on Adi’s moral dilemma.

Four years has been an unfairly long wait for mainstream Indian theatre-goers, but our reward is a nicely engaging film with several morally compelling questions at its core.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	92 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/monsoon-shootout-movie-review-this-nawazuddin-siddiqui-starrer-throws-up-interesting-questions-4259733.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoon_Shootout

REVIEW 533: CHEF

REVIEW 534: SOLO

REVIEW 535: UDAHARANAM SUJATHA

REVIEW 536: RANCHI DIARIES

REVIEW 537: SECRET SUPERSTAR

REVIEW 538: JIA AUR JIA

REVIEW 539: VILLAIN

REVIEW 540: ITTEFAQ

REVIEW 541: GOODALOCHANA

REVIEW 542: RIBBON

REVIEW 543: QARIB QARIB SINGLLE

REVIEW 544: THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR

REVIEW 545: TUMHARI SULU

REVIEW 546: PUNYALAN PRIVATE LIMITED

REVIEW 547: KADVI HAWA

REVIEW 548: AJJI

REVIEW 549: FIRANGI

REVIEW 550: PAIPIN CHUVATTILE PRANAYAM

REVIEW 551: FUKREY RETURNS

REVIEW 552: MONSOON SHOOTOUT