Luckiest Girl Alive

Honestly, I tend to lap up everything that has Mila Kunis in it so, when Netflix gave me the option of watching this new release called Luckiest Girl Alive, I did not waste any time on a perfect Friday evening to see what’s instore for me.

The movie is an adaptation of a novel by Jessica Knoll which was published in 2015 and was a New York Times bestselling mystery novel. I haven’t read the book but, I believe the book version is always better than the movie. A writer narrates a story to YOU directly through a novel. The movies we see are the perception of the story by another person, their understand of the essence of the story, and their take on what the writer wanted to say. So, my review is only of the movie and its not a comment on the novel, the story in the novel or the writer.

Coming back to the movie, best part about watching it was, I had zero clue what it was about and that is a rare thing to happen given the social media influence/interference in our day to day lives. I knew Mila Kunis was promoting a movie, but somehow with the past few weeks being hectic, I never paid much attention to the movie’s storyline.

The movie is a bit sharp around its edges and it’s not all rosy and bright and happy. The initial half of the movie seemed a bit botchy with the past and the present reference of the main character not seamed smoothly. There were moments when I felt the movie was borderline ugly but then, is trauma, anger and grief ever not ugly? As the story unfolded, the “ugliness” that I initially felt made more and more sense. When grief or sadness or human complexities are showcased on screen, more often than not, they are sugarcoated, painted in lovely pastels and seem like a beautiful journey. The reality in fact, is very different. Life isn’t sugarcoated so, why should a raw story be?

I might be biased but Mila’s acting was on point. She always manages to give the characters she portrays a little bit of herself and as an audience, that’s the thing that clicks. Ani FeNelli is flawed, to an extent scary and human. As the movie progressed, I started seeing the pattern behind her chaos, her layers behind the persona she had so diligently created and by the time the movie ends, she became someone I could understand, relate to and empathize with.

Connie Britton did justice to the role given to her. That being said, Ani’s mother’s character could do with a few more layers added to her character resulting in some more depth and insight on the mother-daughter relationship.

I was a bit disappointed on seeing Scoot McNairy so grossly underutilized. I did not know he was a part of this movie so, I was surprised, happy and then disappointed. In that order. An actor of his caliber deserves something more meaty.

Finn Wittrock portrayed the role of Ani’s rich and perfect fiancé, Luke Harrison. The focus in the movie wasn’t on him so, as an actor, Finn couldn’t leave a mark but, in the looks department, he passes with distinction.

The movie touched some very important issues like gun violence in high schools, rape, how society treats the victims, how victims feel about coming out with their truth, how school politics work, how money and social standing plays an important role in forming believable public opinion and how sometimes the closest ones fail to support and be there for the victims. However, the movie could only touch these issues. A little bit more depth and attention to them could have made the movie and the storyline stronger.

It’s a movie I’d remember, for sure. It’s also a movie I wouldn’t watch again. Not because of the heavy subject matter but, because it’s a movie which could have been something brilliant but missed it’s mark. Not a bad movie and not a brilliant one either. Watch it for the sake of watching a story and watching something that borderline nudges you to make you think about the flaws in our society.

Guilty: Review

On a cosy evening, with the weather just perfect, I snuggled in my comforter and started watching a crime thriller on Netflix.  10 minutes in, I saw a notification ping saying “Guilty” was now streaming on Netflix.

I had seen its ads and had probably marked it hence, the notification. I switched to watching Guilty and the next 120 minutes had me hooked onto it.

Guilty is a story of a woman, it’s a story of womankind, it’s a story of humanity, it’s a story screaming why boys need to be raised right, it’s a story of how acceptable victim shaming is, it’s a story of how insensitive we all are as a society.

To review the movie, it’s a very upbeat, young movie with a deep rooted message to which a lot of college kids and youth would identify with as well as the older generation. Based on the #MeToo movement, it’s an extremely urban story. Its so urban that one of the characters in the movie when asked questions about his whereabouts, says “I want to plead the fifth”!. The section of society that has grown up on watching American TV series and Hollywood movies find it eye opening to know 911 isn’t an Indian emergency number and, pleading the fifth is in the American constitution and not in the Indian and this vibe is captured perfectly in the movie. The acting of most of the actors is convincing and the supporting cast is an ensemble of seasoned actors like Dilip Tahir and Niki Aneja Walia. The story of the movie is so powerful that the acting and the actors don’t outshine the story track. You’d remember the cast of this movie by their screen names and not their real-life names and that is a huge accomplishment for any creative team.

What the movie does to the you, is a separate story all together. Like I said earlier, it’s a movie on society, sexuality, gender bias, victim shaming, and the list could go on and on.

What surprises me is, its 2020 and we are still fighting for basic human dignity of a particular gender. Since ages there has been content around this issue. In every century, the story is probably the same. Its just the narration that changes. Watching this movie, I remembered a Hollywood movie I saw as a kid starring Jodie Foster, “The Accused”. The Accused was released in 1988. Guilty is released in 2020. The issue and the insensitivity of the society, the attitude that if a woman is drinking, wearing skimpy clothes, flirting with a man,  is asking for it, is the same. Victim shaming and the victim blaming is the same. The entitlement of men in thinking they have the right to decide who “asks for it” and who doesn’t, is the same and this similarity is what we all as a society should be collectively ashamed of.

In the movie, a girl who accuses the college heartthrob of rape, with whom she had been flirting and wanting to sleep with, wore skimpy clothes and minced no words when said “yes, I wanted to be with him, yes, I flirted with him, yes I wanted to be his girlfriend and yes, I wanted to sleep with him BUT NOT IN FRONT OF HIS FRIENDS” is a statement that probably a lot of people would not even understand because of the expert raising techniques that we practice in our societies.

The film treads on the bold territory of domestic rape, wearing plunging necklines, the coexistence of the possibility of flirting and having the right to say NO, the stark difference in the perception people have of a woman who seeks attention and of a man who seeks attention and, of course, the dirty world of legal politics.

Why the #MeToo movement caught such a momentum worldwide is no rocket science. The logic is simple. There cannot be a woman in the world who has never ever faced any kind of physical abuse. It may be in the form of rape, eve teasing, bottom pinching, slut shaming etc but, it has happened. And all of it falls under one umbrella: treating women as objects.

How hard is it to understand what No means. How have we all raised the boys who went on to become the kind of men that think cleavage, alcohol, short dresses and flirting is a certified indication of “asking for it”?

I remember when I was in college, a bunch of boys used to eve tease us every single day. The police station was walking distance from my college so myself along with two more friends of mine went to the police station to complain. The police officer there took one look at us and told us to wear full sleeved clothes and wear salwar kameez instead of jeans and the “boy problem” would soon vanish.

When would we start holding men accountable for their actions? Why do women have to be cautious for themselves as well as for men? Why is the onus of not provoking men on women?

It takes a village to raise a child and looks like since centuries we have been raising boys in the wrong kind of village.

The Nun

The Nun

Not scary. NUNtheless , a good storyline with NUN of the shitting-in-the-pants-scares that made the rest of the movies of the series so damn good.

One time watch for the sake of closure. Though the horror wasn’t great, the humour was subtle and well, humorous.

Looks like the movie makers had pressure to match their predecessors and were rather iNUNdated with trying to prove themselves. A rather NUNdescript and NUNentity in an otherwise entertaining series in the rare genre of good horror movies.

PS: my shortest movie review ever

Manhunt: Unabomber

Very few television series have the seriousness and the ability to carry a crime thriller with panache especially in absence of abundance of sex and skin show.

I am a huge fan of crime and suspense thrillers. As a kid i was often found buried in books like Famous Five and Secret Seven slowly graduating to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and then hitting the jackpot with Agatha Christie. It was no surprise when I picked up Criminal Minds, Dexter, Breaking Bad, The Blacklist, Narcos, House of Cards and Sopranos as my go to series.

Watching them, I was sure I have seen it all. And then, I saw True Detective. That had me bowled over but nothing prepared me for Manhunt: Unabomber. Boy, oh boy! THAT series is a work of a genius. The execution is seamless with the perfect blend of the taste of the chase and the joy of unravelling a mystery.

The concept is brilliant and so appealing to someone like me who finds joy in deciphering people and the hidden truths that i was actually sad when I watched its last episode for I wished for the series to just go on. The concept of implicating someone on the basis of literary forensics is a delight for people who are passionate about writing and understanding the human psychology.

In my opinion, the series can easily have a spin off, a detailed after, highlighting the way it all changed the lives of so many people. But, i am also scared if my wish does come true, i would be mighty disappointed if it doesn’t live up to its glorious predecessor.

This series deserves a royal treatment for it has made almost every other crime thriller look like the work of a child.

Kudos to the team !

Padmaavat(i)

Right from the beginning, since the time the goons of the unemployed-kaam-nahi-karna-but-tashan-mei-hai-rehna sena also known as karni sena beat SLB and his crew in Rajasthan, i had a tremendous interest in the movie Padmavati ( who’s gender had been changed in the light of the recent developments and in wake of the spineless government that we have, to Padmaavat. This change in name reminded me of a Dilip Saheb movie where he played double role and a single black mole on the face fooled people)

Coming back to the unemployed-anti national- terrorist-sena , when i see the tv interviews of these samples-of-idiocies, another scene comes to my mind from Jolly LLB : Kaun hain ye log? Kaha se aate hain ye?

Nonetheless, i think we should concentrate on the movie now. So, since i am in Rajasthan and the extremely fragile government of my state didn’t offer any protection to any theatres screening the movie, this SLB creation has not been released in the state. So, what do i do? Well, i spoke to a guy in my office and requested him to get hold of the movie and he did! ( India is ultimately a land of jugaad!) Thanks to him, i could watch the movie and hence, the review!

The movie begins with a disclaimer. Now, had the unemployed-illiterate-sena guys known the meaning of the word ‘disclaimer ‘ they won’t have raised such a ruckus. This movie is a typical SLB creation with opulent sets, splashes of bright colours and a cinematographic delight. The acting of all the actors is worth a praise especially Ranveer Singh who makes the despicable Khilji hot and even sexy in some ways.

Deepika is as usual prim and proper and perfect in every scene, impeccably conveying all the emotions. Shahid is a seasoned actor who has proved his mettle a lot many times and does complete justice to his role as a Rajput warrior.

Now, after seeing the movie, I had a real WTF moment when I realised that SLB has glorified Rajputs so much (perhaps has gone a tad overboard with it ) that the entire Karni Sena brigade should actually be sending him thank you notes and fragrant flower bouquets! And.. wait for it.. it should actually be some muslim group that takes an offence for the animal-like portrayal of Khilji ( smelling food like a hound and eating it like a jackal) devoid of humanity, making him seem to be an uncouth, uncivilised, unethical looser who couldn’t even catch a glimpse of the woman for whom he waged a war and put everything at stake ( was he that stupid). The Rajputs should in fact be coming out of the movie halls with supercilious smug smiles because hey! Khlji couldn’t even win a one-on-one battle with the great Rajput! I mean, that lad was good for nothing!

So what was the whole agitation about? In my opinion, the politicians got a chance to create a rift between people ( for nothing ), the Karni Sena goons got their 15 minutes of fame, SLB got huge publicity, the internet got an amazing amount of memes and well, the government in a not so subtle manner clearly and unabashedly yet again declared its leanings and ideologies. And we, the people of India? Aahh , we proved ( for the nth time) to be the puppets of the right and the left wing groups and danced once again to their tunes.

Begum Jaan

India Pakistan partition is one of the most painful lines drawn in the history of the world. The migration that took place is the largest migration to have ever taken place. Why? For what? For the miscalculations of a few people, for the ego of a few men and religion, acting as a weapon. 
I personally believe that partition and the time pre and post that bloody August, should be told more to the youth. There is so much to understand, to know and to soak in. Like MJ Akbar famously said, “to understand our present, we need to understand our past”. 
That being said, the movie had me bowled over in the first 5 minutes of its beginning. To come up with a vision to start a movie with that scene, one needs more than imagination, guts and conviction. For most, it would be too bold to handle. 
With a cast that needs no introduction, the movie was packed with some power packed performances and some earth shatteringly honest, raw and hair raising dialogues. 
What came as a surprise was, the magnificent performance by Chunky Pandey. He reminded me of Nana Patekar in Shakti and i have now some new found respect for the man. Finally after doing an unimaginable number of forgettable flicks, he has learnt the craft and am looking forward to see more of him. Or more of the new-him. 
Vidya Balan is so powerful that she can make anyone shit in their pants just by giving THAT look. She is that good. 

Naseeruddin Shah though didnt have much screen presence, did more than justice to the sleazy lowlife that he portrayed. Hats off to him. 
The ending though, could have been more detailed and impactful. The emotions were raw and straight hitting. 
In some places, the plot could have been given more weightage as compared to maintaining the rawness of the movie. At some places, that balance is lost.  
Also, the epicentre of the movie seemed a little uncooked. Could have been baked a bit more. 
All said and done, we did need a dose of some raw cinema. the movie was gripping, raw and struck a few chords. 
Not for the faint hearted and definitely not a movie to take your date on. DONT commit that mistake. Its heavy and would kind of stay with you for a while.

Naam Shabana

Only my mother could make me get up early on a Sunday and force me to go for a movie at 10. So, this Sunday, grumpy AF and groggy headed because of the Saturday late night, we made our way in the sweltering heat of Jaipur to watch Naam Shabana. 
If you ask me from a content point of view, the movie doesn’t have much content to boast about. What it does have is, action, thrill and a surprise ( unlike most Indian movies) that doesn’t let you get bored in the hall. 
One of the things i liked about the movie was, it is a female centric movie, banking on not a big star like Priyanka Chopra or Vidya Balan and still managing to make its way into main stream cinema and get a decent amount of audience (even in the morning show!) 
A friend of mine had asked me to watch Baby first since it is Naam Shabana’s prequel. So, watching Baby a day earlier made it easier to relate to Naam Shabana but at the same time not having watched the movie wont make much of a difference either. 
The acting by the actors in the movie needs no praise since they are all well established, accomplished, intense actors. Tapsee did a good job of portraying the role of a normal girl next door with a fire inside. Akshay had a cameo but as usual, made his presence felt. Loved Anupam Kher as the poor Shukla ji always in a soup because of the “tarzan”, as he calls Akshay. Manoj Bajpayee is a fabulous actor and wish had more screen time. Prithviraj Sukumaran did come as a surprise and rocked as a hot, ruthless villain and carried the role with an elan and poise that made every shade of negative look sexier and hotter. 

The story was predictable yet kept the audience hooked. A decent watch and a good attempt at making thriller and action movies a part of decent mainstream cinema again. The thrill part though needed more work because to someone like me who feeds on The Blacklist, Criminal Minds, Dexter and How to Get Away With Murder, the plot seemed somewhat kiddish at times and had some loopholes at places. No useless songs, no sexism, no double meaning jokes. 

A definite one time watch with no regrets. 

PINKed !!

A movie like #Pink is a rarity in cinema. Its brilliance in the simplicity of the concept cant be described in words.

The movie breaks a stereotype in almost every scene.. some subtle, in your face and some so loud you’ll hear them even after you step out of the movie theater.

very well made movie, thought provoking to say the least and very sensitive. Its actually sad that we need movies like these to make people understand that NO means NO.

As for the actors, Amitabh Bachchan is a magician on screen. The audience reciprocates to everything that he does on screen. He talks and the audience listens, he cries and the audience cries, he laughs and the audience laugh, he remains silent and the audience listens to the unspoken words, he looks in some direction and the audience bend in that as if they could see. Tapsee Pannu needs a little more skill of the craft. Kirti KUlhari and Andrea looked seasoned and left an impression.

The sign of a good actor playing a negative role is, the audience would hate the character to the core and feel the impulse to rip the guy apart. Piyush Mishra does more than justice to the sleazy lawyer that he plays and compels the audience to look into their vocabulary of cuss words and dedicate a few to him in the course of the movie.

A good watch, a must watch and something that to which each and every girl (i can talk about the girls) would relate to.

I can personally relate to it through this incident. I was in college first year. Along with two other friends i was eating ice cream at a nearby ice cream parlor. Some guys on a motor bike came and started saying obscene things and then started following us. There was a police station right next to the ice cream place so, we three armed with our ice creams, went into the police station. The moment we stepped inside, on looking back I could see the guys speeding away like lunatics. Nevertheless, we narrated the whole thing to the person in charge there. And then , the person sitting there in uniform told us to wear full sleeved clothes and salwar kameez so that we are safe. Needless to say, our confidence melted quicker than our ice creams and we came back trying to figure out what just happened.

Almost every girl in our society has had a “pink” moment. And its time we addressed this issue.

12 Angry Men in an Equally Angry World

For a 3 day course ie Foundations of Education in Epistemology and Curriculum, we were given a small task to be done before coming for the classes. The task was to watch the movie “12 Angry Men” and to relate its context in terms of knowledge.At first, the task seemed completely irrelevant and out of sync with the movie. Since I had watched the movie beforehand, it seemed to me a waste of both time and energy and I was sure this task was nothing but a lame attempt by the philosopher taking the course to “make people think”. Nonetheless, I watched the movie again and this time, to my surprise and slight disappointment at being proved wrong, I started perceiving the different layers depicted in the movie, started seeing its relevance in context to how we conceive knowledge and even how we see the world.
One thing that floated in my mind again and again while watching the movie was, knowledge is based on perception and perception often is not objective and depends on how acceptable or convenient the facts presented are.
The movie shows a court house where a jury is given time until they come up with a unanimous verdict in case of a boy who allegedly murdered his father. Now, the problem was getting all the jurors in sync and reaching a unanimous decision since the jurors represented all sections of the society and each one came with their own personal baggage of bias and notions.

Second time around and seeing the movie in a whole new light, I started noticing various things. Like in real life, this movie also has different kinds of believers. It shows how to simply align to the popular beliefs or trends most people forgo what they believe in or ignore what they could have seen had they gone deeper because most of the people don’t even believe that they as a person can make a difference or be otherwise.

Furthermore, the movie points to what reality actually is. Is reality what is presented to us? Or what we infer out of it or what we see after we try to be objective or even after all this, is reality in fact ambiguous and something that can only be perceived and not proven and does the same go for knowledge?

Since knowledge is more objective than fact driven, it is possible that the world we live in, the things we believe in have some other side to them which we have all simply ignored in a hurry to accept what is given, to quickly align and most importantly to save the extra mile that needs to be taken to go deeper to form an honest opinion in order to develop an understanding.
12 Angry Men dealt with a dozen people’s anger and in the process, tossed a question at an equally angry world. A simple question which can never be answered without being ambiguous; what is real?
Relating the movie to the present world was also an aspect that gave me so much to think about. So many notions and ideas and opinions we form each day without being patient enough to think them through. So many times we refuse to simply sit and discuss, listen to what the other has to say and explore the possibility of adding their knowledge or views to ours.
The movie again and again had a juror pleading and urging the rest of the jurors to think about the possibility of a certain thing. The presence of the idea of a possibility suddenly opens a thousand doors for us and forces us to step a step further than our demarcated comfort zone.
A very important and interesting part of the film was, almost no names were used in the entire movie while addressing the people. Jurors were identified mainly by their numbers. This leaving out of the names in fact did a huge favour to the audience. The old insignificant man, the white arrogant man, the man who thought he knew everything, could have been anyone. It could be me, the people I know or anyone from my family. The movie gave the traits, a type of person and left on us to relate or not relate to them.
Some things, some incidents, some experiences tend to break the wall in our minds, in our thinking and take us a notch further in terms of knowledge, in terms of understanding and in terms of being a relevant being in this world.

Watching this movie in a whole new light did to me just that.

Till the time such incidents and experiences happen, learning continues. It’s amazing to think what new can be learnt each day, each hour and even if we live a thousand years, there would still be an enormous number of things that we wouldn’t have even the faintest idea about.

A curious and an inquisitive mind make life a mystery that can be solved everyday only to find a new challenge after each layer is uncovered.

Cogito ergo sum
I think, therefore I am

Emotions: the bong style

Some movies are good, some are bad, some are brilliant and, some are simply magic. Piku is sheer magic coming out of the ordinary life. It is a sensitively portrayed story of a father and daughter relationship. The magic in the movie comes from the brutal honesty and the deep love that the duo share for each other in spite of being completely fed up of the situation they are in. It is a traditional yet modern Bengali story. Traditional in its essence, its portrayal of a typical Bengali household, the locations and modern in its treatment of the subject, the representation of an independent woman and the choices she makes. 

Apart from the father-daughter pair, a very important ingredient of the movie is the authentic Bengali backdrop. By bringing a Bengali background, the movie inevitably brings in a lot of spice and effortless humor. Bengalis by nature and instinct are anything but docile. Watching Piku was a treat to my half Bengali self (the other half being Jaat, my father’s side i.e). Bengalis are a very passionate, loud and untamed specie. By loud, I mean LOUD! Yes! That loud. By the experiences I have had with my passionate side of the family, I found the movie hilariously accurate. There is no discussion in a Bengali household that ends well and with logic. For Bengalis, its either my way or no way at all (forget about the highway) . They can start with Mamata Didi and end with Saddam Hussein and fight tooth and nail with such passion and enthusiasm that a non-Bengali could only muster in the situation of life and death or if someone is drowning and help needs to be called in. But, at the same time, these emotionally charged people have their heart in the right place and in fact are a very sensitive lot with their family, their relationships and emotions being the nucleus of their life.

 

Piku is a working girl, independent, vocal, snappy, borderline rude and definitely hyper living with her father and taking care of his nonexistent illnesses which he cleverly uses to get a constant stream of attention from his daughter. The insecurities Piku’s father has are in fact very cute and at some point in the movie one does feel sorry for this big child in spite of him being absolutely impossible to deal with. Piku’s father always and perpetually complains about the quality of the stool he passes or is unable to pass on days when he has constipation. Somehow, it seems listening to his complains, each and every topic in the universe is directly linked to the digestive track. But, this is no surprise either. It is only just another typical Bengali thing. Not the complaining part, the potty talks. Each and every Bengali family takes great pleasure in talking about their motion (I would try and be a bit sophisticated and use mature words to describe it) and at the same time pretends and laughs as if embarrassed when such a discussion takes place. In reality, it is one of their favorite topics.

 

While I was watching this movie, to my surprise, I did not see Amitabh Bachchan or Deepika Padukone even for a single moment. All I saw was a fiery Piku and her grumpy, insecure, clever, big mouthed father. Amitabh Bachchan has acted the part so well that every child with an irritating father can totally and completely connect to him and jump and say exactly! this is how they behave!! Deepika is excellent in the role of a feisty, fiery Bong girl who has no qualms in calling a spade a spade. Both the actors have proved their mettle in this cinematic delight and come out with flying colors.

 

The humor in the movie is not loud. It is subtle. Almost every humorous incident is situational and linked to human emotions. That being another aspect brilliantly covered in the movie. The movie captures emotions in such minute details that the audience can immediately connect to the characters and find themselves immersed in the story unfolding before them. The perspective of an old man who refuses to allow any other male in his territory and near his daughter and the side of a daughter who loves her father in spite of being irritated by him to the limit, loving him deeply, are both portrayed magnificently. This movie proves humor is not only found in the apparent and in your face things in life. Humor can be found in a simple look, a reaction of a father seeing a man talking to his daughter, a daughter scolding the father for drinking and dancing and then falling sick because of the adventure. Humor is a part of everyday being, a part of our existence. A perspective is all that is needed to identify it in our lives and that aspect is covered with efficiency in the movie. The most serious subjects are handled with great maturity in the movie and that maturity doesn’t come with being serious and grave, that maturity comes with understanding the brighter side of everything.

The movie is a refreshing change from the typical run of the mill stories one comes across now a days. It is also very believable. Being made by a Bong has only elevated its authenticity quotient. If a spy cam is installed in a Bengali household, this movie is exactly how the people would be seen talking and reacting. The moral questions the movie raises, the parent-child relationship it depicts and the moral responsibilities the movie talks about, are a few things that have not been paid attention to by our film industry. Calling this movie worth a watch would be underestimating the effect it has on a mind. This movie should be seen and understood for improving one’s own self and for trying to become a better person.