Regina King shines in a Louis Vuitton gown that was covered in over 40,000 sequins and took 350 hours to make. Photo: iamreginaking/Instagram
Anya Taylor-Joy, who won Best Actress in a mini series or motion picture for ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, in a custom Dior gown and wearing Tiffany and Co. jewellery. Photo: anyataylorjoy/Instagram
Rosamund Pike, who won Best Actress in a motion picture (musical or comedy) for her role in ‘I Care a Lot’, in a layered Molly Goddard dress paired with Alexander McQueen biker boots. Photo: mspike/Instagram
Dan Levy, whose show ‘Schitt’s Creek’ won Best TV series (musical or comedy), in Valentino Couture for men. Photo: instadanjlevy/Instagram
Viola Davis in a custom Claude Kameni gown “inspired by African royalty”, according to her stylist Elizabeth Stewart. Photo: violadavis/Instagram
Elle Fanning, styled by Samantha McMillen, channels old Hollywood glamour in a custom Gucci gown.
Photo: ellefanning/Instagram
Styled by Harry Lambert, Josh O’Connor, who won Best Actor in a TV series (Drama) for his role in ‘The Crown’, in Spanish luxury brand Loewe. Photo: joshographee/Instagram
Nicole Kidman, styled by Julia von Boehm, in a custom Louis Vuitton gown that took 425 hours to embroider. Photo: nicolekidman/Instagram
There is a very clear Fukrey vibe to Roohi, in fact there are scenes which will immediately remind you of Choocha and his unhinged love for Bholi, only that there’s a ‘churail’ (ghost) around. And it’s not any ordinary ghost but ‘Mudiya Pairi’ (literally twisted ankles).
In and around Bagadpur, which has people speaking several dialects, there’s a tradition of ‘pakdai byah’ (bride kidnapping). Bhawra Pandey (Rajkummar Rao) and Katanni (Varun Sharma) are among the contract goons who get such weddings done. The twist in the tale comes when they abduct a possessed girl Roohi (Janhvi Kapoor) and then fall in love with her as Sharma hilariously calls it ‘the exercise of imlie’.
Written by Mrighdeep Singh Lamba and Gautam Mehra, Roohi is totally about spontaneity and a solid beginning. Though both Rao and Sharma are in their favourite zone, but their back and forth and punchlines evoke laughs. The first 15-20 minutes of the film have more spoken words than an entire Vishal Bhardwaj film. Director Hardik Mehta (Amdavad Ma Famous, Kaamyaab) has got his hands on the pulse of the young audiences. He knows when to go for the oneliners and when to use overpowering background score to enhance the charm of a jungle and a funny ghost situation.
Because Stree came first, so you might notice similarities but at the core of Roohi lies a lesser complicated idea. The only hindrance is that by the time we reach the point of resolution, almost everything has been repeated at least twice and the viewers are hammered with Choocha and Aaloo (Rao, Ludo) antics. If we avoid nitpicking then it’s actually quite enjoyable, certainly better than the heavy-duty notions hurled at us in the second half.
Kapoor’s quickly shifting moods and voice modulations seem funnier than intended. At one point of time, it begins to feel like a split personality film gone completely awry. Thankfully, Rao and Sharma, mostly the latter, know their boundaries and stick to their strengths.
Mehta, as director, while working with a convoluted script, creates some praiseworthy imageries, like that of an old lady doing cardio or Rao spreading his arms like Shah Rukh Khan in a silhouette. Such ploys instantly create a light mood where one would be more inclined to appreciate the efforts to create situational comedy. Despite being predictable and some disconnected scenes, Roohi has a tone of its own. It’s very talkative and has one point agenda — word play to the most.
You may not remember this 145-minute film for its ideas but you’ll remember it for high entertainment quotient. Just like Hera Pheri, Thank You and Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare, Roohi too establishes an instant connect in spite of outrageous situations and extremely over the top comedy.
Bombay Begums is a classic example of letting go of good opportunities in the name of sticking to the theme. Just when the audiences begin to feel a connection with the show, it changes track. The six-episode show loses steam within first two episodes and then keeps beating around the bush for the rest of it.
Rani (Pooja Bhatt) is a small-town girl who has made it in the big bad world of Mumbai corporates, but she has lately started to sense a change in her moral stances. While Fatima (Shahana Goswami) and Ayesha (Plabita Borthakur) work under Rani in the same organisation, Shai (Aadhya Anand) is her step daughter. Lily (Amruta Subhash), a sex worker, is the fifth vertex of this pentagon. Together they set out to create a story about the struggles faced by the women of different social strata and how they tactfully handle the hostile situations.
It was a good role for Bhatt to make a return to acting but her character couldn’t combat the monotony surrounding her existence in the show and how it was a unidirectional role without any frills. The creator—Alankrita Shrivastava (Lipstick Under My Burqa, Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare)—has tried to give her a solid ally in Goswami, but the repetition of sentiments and dialogues disguised as punchlines, have hampered their chances.
Bombay Begums never had any prolonged moments of realisation or even excitement. The crude antagonists are there for everyone to see and the non-judgmental vibes towards the female characters don’t always work in favour of the lead characters.
The show seems to be in a rush to give a clean-chit to the women, who were themselves doing a lot of wrongs. A balanced approach might have found the viewers rooting a little more for them.
However, superbly written characters of Ayesha and Shai provide some solace. They look genuine and have a great identification value. The side tracks don’t work at all as their sole purpose is to fulfil the need of bad guys in the lives of ‘begums’.
Bombay Begums, despite being a mini-series, is stretched and lacks coherence. The set-up never entices the viewers beyond the threshold.
The Girl on the Train relies on Parineeti Chopra and it’s a welcome change to see her in an intense role. However, the film doesn’t utilise all its chances.
A friend and fellow journalist quipped the other afternoon, “why could they have not stopped with Drishyam 1, instead of coming out with a sequel?” She had a point. Honestly a franchise, and that is what, Drishyam, seems to be transforming into, is hard to sustain. Yes, some like the Bond series have managed to stay on without flagging. But this is more an exception.
The 2013 Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam was a phenomenal hit, and there were two important reasons for this. Police brutality in States like Kerala is no secret, and the middle class as well as the poor, have borne the brunt of this for years. The other was Mohanlal’s brilliant piece of performance, and he is arguably one of the best in India, nay the world, today, slipping into characters with amazing ease.
As Georgekutty, a man who could not even clear standard four of his school education, because of grinding poverty, he rises to own a television cable shop, and endless hours of watching films educate him in a variety of ways that comes in handy when he has to keep his small family of wife, Rani (Meena) and two daughters, Anju (Ansiba Hassan) and Anumol (Esther Anil), safe.
When Varun, the arrogantly brash teenage son of the Inspector-General of Police (Geetha Prabhakar playing Asha Sarath), takes a picture of Anju while she is bathing during a school picnic and blackmails her into sleeping with him, things go horribly wrong. Anju in an act of defence kills the boy, and all hell breaks loose.
Georgekutty is not a man to be cowed down, and the rest of the movie is an exciting game of how he foxes the cops and saves his family. The twist, in the end, is simply superb.
Drishyam was remade in several languages – Tamil with Kamal Hassan essaying Mohanlal’s character, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Sinhalese and even, believe it or not, Chinese. All of them did extremely well, with audiences everywhere rooting for Georgekutty and his family.
It, therefore, came as no surprise that Joseph would work on a follow-up, Drishyam 2, which has just dropped in Amazon Prime. In Malayalam with the same star cast, Mohanlal and others, the movie, I felt, has a lost a bit of its pulse-pounding excitement that was pretty much evident in the first part.
Here Georgekutty (Mohanlal again) has risen up the ladder; he owns a theatre and drives a swanky car. He has started to drink, much to the annoyance of his wife, Rani (again played by Meena). But he soothes her by saying that when he is with friends from the cinema world, a bit of alcohol helps.
The man nurses an ambition. He has a story and script ready, and is on the lookout for a producer. The plot has been published in the form of a book, and later, this will turn the tide in his favour. The old case of Varun’s disappearance, with his body never being found — although audiences would remember that it was buried under the newly constructed police station, a place that the men in khaki would never dream of looking – is still the subject of local gossip, Georgekutty’s rising prosperity fuelling jealousy as well.
When a new police chief takes charge in Georgekutty’s town, the case against him is reopened, and the cat-and-mouse game begins with the teenager’s parents flying down from the US, where Asha Sarath and her husband had migrated to.
Georgekutty’s peaceful family life once again comes under scrutiny, with Anju having developed epilepsy following the traumatic police interrogation in part one of Drishyam. Her condition, pushed by new fear, worsens, but Georgekutty had taken a pledge that, come what may, he would protect his family.
Drishyam 2 narrates how he does this, though this part lacks a bit of the pulse-pounding excitement we saw in the first edition. There are a couple of situations that are somewhat hard to believe, and the courtroom scene is terribly dull.
While Mohanlal sparkles with his cunning outsmarting cops in ways they could never even dream of, the other actors really do not match up to him. In the end, it falls upon him to carry the film on his shoulder.
Drishyam may or may not have another part. Who knows! For, the work illustrates a common man’s middleclass dreams, aspirations and fears – which are universal. It is also about how he feels uncomfortable with the police. Little wonder, then, we root for Georgekutty, we forgive him for his misdeeds, because he is out to keep his family out of harm’s way. And for the world, the family is still precious. Is it not?
Rating: 3/5
(Gautaman Bhaskaran is a movie critic and author of a biography of Adoor Gopalakrishnan)
“The Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, all at the same time.”
Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav), while continuously breaking the fourth wall through dialogues and gestures, readies us for the ‘dark times’. He asks us to not take the opening of the film on its face value as his story is not what it seems to be.
Director Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, 99 Homes) focuses on the difficult choices made by an ambitious, fast learner and conniving Jharkhand boy in The White Tiger, based on a synonymous book by Aravind Adiga. In the process, he tries to explore the caste and economic divide and how they’re interrelated in modern India, which is not always about the shining module projected to the world. However, most of it fails to fetch any second looks.
Gourav stands his ground against Priyanka Chopra, who is brimming with confidence and a fantastic screen presence, and Rajkummar Rao, who struggles during accent swap. Because the narrator and the central character are one, bringing many sides of the story must have been tedious for Bahrani, but he somehow manages to give the audience a picture of how the rural-urban segregation could have worked during the initial days of liberal economy.
Despite promising a darker tale in the beginning, The White Tiger rarely ventures beyond the obvious. There is no denying that the privileged part of the West might find some portions unsettling, but overall, it doesn’t impact to the level that you begin pondering about the natural progression the story could have followed otherwise. Not comparing with Slumdog Millionaire, but at least Danny Boyle got the shock value to the optimum. Here, Bahrani entangles himself in metaphors that don’t generate any curiosity or are totally lost in translation.
I also have issues with celebrating grimness or justifying poverty or being underprivileged as the ultimate catalyst to crime, which unfortunately is the sole reason behind the bulk of Gourav’s deeds in the latter half. Even if it is not directly about the victim and the predator, you wouldn’t want the makers to cheer for the right person while standing in the wrong court.
Also, because a lot has changed since the release of the book in 2008, some plots could have been read in a new light. One thing that has categorically changed in last 12-13 years is the upliftment of the high aspirational values of the youth, both rural and urban. With the support from the government and some protection by the law, youngsters probably wouldn’t go down the ambiguous path of fraud and crime. It’s debatable though.
The White Tiger,streaming on Netflix in India, keeps feeding the same poor-guy-turned-criminal narrative to its takers. It hardly shows any intentions of scratching beneath the surface. Not intriguing enough.
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Sunil Grover, Kumud Mishra, Zeeshan Ayyub
Creator: Ali Abbas Zafar
Blame it on the successful Amazon Prime Video model in India that most of their Hindi thrillers follow a certain template. Be it Mirzapur, Inside Edge, Breathe, Paatal Lok or its latest outing Tandav, the streaming giant relies mostly on set pieces. But it’s not a bad thing as these shows have mostly been entertaining and know a thing or two about their potential audiences.
Tandav, created by Ali Abbas Zafar and headlined by Saif Ali Khan, is the latest noisemaker in the Hindi OTT space and definitely plays to the gallery, and along the way, gives the viewers ample hints about how Bollywood sees a web series as a 9-episode extension of a typical film rather than a separate entity. Zafar (Gunday, Tiger Zinda Hai) also adds his touch to the production, and as a result, the twists-laden narrative keeps shifting goalposts.
Though the makers could have chosen a less stereotyped name than Samar Pratap Singh (Khan) for their anchor, a conniving yet vulnerable scion of India’s most powerful political family, they give the actor a nice arc to work with. Some may find similarities between Tandav and Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti, but to be honest, mainstream Hindi filmmaking has hardly shown any will to make sensible and serious political drama till date.
Tigmanshu Dhulia plays Khan’s father a la Wasseypur style but the new JP Singh is better carved out. Then there are other players like political rivals—Dimple Kapadia and Kumud Mishra—revolutionary students—Zeeshan Ayyub and Kritika Kamra—and a henchman—Sunil Grover in an image-changing role.
There are some tricks and treats and how Samar battles at many fronts also contribute generously to the dance of fury.
Written by Gaurav Solanki (Article 15) and Zafar, Tandav owes massively from the perception that you have to be dirty and somewhat criminal to be successful in electoral politics, so we keep meeting corrupt leaders, trigger-happy cops and derailed media bosses. It may not look good in principle but it spices up proceedings quite a bit, and thanks to the overdose of blood and gore OTTs are filling us with, Tandav appears familiar and tolerable, meaningless though. But who cares till it is glossy and everyone’s cheeks are trembling with anger and fear. Am I missing Hrithik Roshan here!
To me, Khan seems more genuine whenever he plays negative characters. Maybe he should do more of such roles. Not calling it villainous because it’s not totally black in the first five episodes that were provided for the review purpose. He knows his territory and is continuously evolving as an actor. Isn’t he experimenting more than his contemporaries lately?
Dimple Kapadia is good despite hamming but the same can’t be said about Kumud Mishra. I wish I hadn’t seen Ram Singh Charlie and Thappad before his forced laughter in Tandav.
The show may pick up in later episodes but first five display all the trappings of a ‘masala’ Bollywood production with absolutely nothing to ponder about once it’s over. Before you tag me pretentious, I would reiterate that Tandav is entertaining, provided you have a high appetite for projected punchlines and audacious behaviour.
Cast: Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan, Paresh Rawal, Jaaved Jaaferi
Director: David Dhawan
Not that the Govinda-Karisma starrer Coolie No 1 of 1995 was a great film but it had an inherent and very natural funny vibe to it, so typical of most of David Dhawan’s slice-of-life comedies. A simple storyline, absolutely spot-on comic timing, and addictive songs.
Dhawan’s films such as Aankhen, Shola Aur Shabnam, Coolie No 1, Judwaa, Hero No 1, were mostly those middle class poor guy-rich girl type of stories that made us notice the simplicity of the idea and their fun execution. Unfortunately, nothing similar can be said about Dhawan’s latest—Coolie No 1 remake—featuring his son Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan. It’s tiring and irritating to see Dhawan senior losing his touch and presenting a half-baked product that has nothing to call its own, other than a couple of unremarkable oneliners and surprisingly tacky makeup.
The story remains the same. Rozario (Paresh Rawal), a Goa hotelier, insults Jaikishan (Jaaved Jaaferi), a matchmaker, and the latter settles the score by getting rich Rozario’s daughter Sarah (Sara Ali Khan) married to a poor station porter Raju (Varun). In between, there are song remakes, scenes remakes, and dance remakes. Imitation is definitely the sincerest form of flattery, especially if it is of your own film!
For a movie that is still stuck in the ‘90s, the absence of actors like Kader Khan, Shakti Kapoor, and Sadashiv Amrapurkar, is a big blow even if you refrain from comparisons. There’s not much left to do though!
Totally lackluster dialogues and the absence of intent don’t raise the level of cringe to the required level. Where is that spontaneity and the Govinda magic?
Sample this dialogue:
Heaven on the docks man,
I am ‘lomdi’ and the fox man!
Or, this one:
Jab meri beti ho gayi iski,
Toh it’s only rum and whiskey!
I don’t see anyone laughing!
Then there are frequent imitations of Bollywood stars in bizarrely disinteresting ways, and in the middle of all this unintentional chaos, Sara Ali Khan keeps standing on the balcony in search of a savior, not for her but the film. Either she knew what was going to happen to the film and wanted to get out of the sets as soon as possible, or what they say about nepotism is true. It’s not a film she would like to be remembered for.
Easily one of the finest Hindi films of the year, and definitely the most unique with a mainstream star in it, AK Vs AK has Anil Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap playing themselves amid heightened emotions, surreal moments and twisted plots. It’s different, enjoyable, trippy and a total blur between reality and fiction.
It all starts when an ageing superstar AK (Anil Kapoor) gets into a heated argument with another AK (Anurag Kashyap), a self-obsessed filmmaker, and Kashyap kidnaps Kapoor’s daughter, actress Sonam Kapoor (Sonam Kapoor). Then begins a chase which, in a way, tries to bring forth the paradoxes of a Bollywood star’s life and how they’re expected to ‘act’ even during the depressing times.
Director Vikramaditya Motwane, whose placements of handheld camera with gloomy surround lighting in Bhavesh Joshi Superhero, impressed me a lot, is in an even better mood here as he gets voyeuristic, sensational and under the skin. I forgot to tell you that Motwane has a representative in Yogita Bihani, Kashyap’s assistant in the film, who is recording Kapoor’s moves.
Of course, some restrains have been maintained but Motwane has stretched till he could as Kapoor and Kashyap flaunt self-deprecating humour almost to the verge of unsettling the viewers. For example, Kapoor taunts Bihani of being Kashyap’s girlfriend, or Harshvardhan Kapoor, Anil Kapoor’s son, trying to impress Kashyap with his acting chops in the middle of a crisis.
The other side of a star life has also been expressed as onlookers keep asking Kapoor to do his famous Ram Lakhan steps, a song that came more than three decades ago. The perception of a Bollywood star as the ultimate public influencer has been challenged. It’s so ironic and tragic to see Kapoor dancing to please the audience in the middle of the search for his missing daughter.
There are enough Kashyap jokes as well, like the one about his brother being the most commercially successful filmmaker in the family. At times, it even attempts to look beyond Kashyap’s tough exterior of being an outspoken, perennially angry person. It’s hard to find out how much of this is ‘acting’. Full marks to Motwane for making his actors comfortable enough to make them visit the dark alleys of their subconscious where there is no right and wrong, only the immediate reaction to clear and present danger.
Interestingly, despite the handheld camera recording everything, it’s not exactly a fly on the wall documentation. The filmmaker has quite strong opinions about many developments. Motwane, in no uncertain terms, pushes his characters to make bold comments about Bollywood, insider versus outsider and lack of resources. Needless to say, such ploys add depth to AK Vs AK.
Kapoor has excelled. It’s funny to even write this because he is playing himself but we don’t know how much of this is not script-bound! Kashyap has once again shown his love for unique material, and he has bared all, sometimes literally. While Harshvardhan Kapoor shines in a cameo, Yogita Bihani also fits the bill.
Another lovely film from Motwane’s repertoire. It reaches where mainstream Bollywood films hesitate to go.
Cast: Neeraj Kabi, Jaideep Ahlawat, Abhishek Banerjee
Creator: Sudip Sharma
Crime thriller genre has really caught up with the showrunners on the Indian OTT platforms, and Amazon Prime Video’s latest show Pataal Lok has just made it a better choice. Established in the bylanes of Delhi and explored in the ravines of Bundelkhand, Pataal Lok dissects the world of heinous crimes with surgical precision. You don’t know whether to hate these criminals or give them the benefit of doubt as they casually go about their victims.
While shows like Sacred Games and Mirzapur relied on sudden chills, Paatal Lok is more about going inside the criminal’s mind without attributing superhuman qualities to them. Though Sacred Games was also from a cop’s perspective, Paatal Lok’s Hathiram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat) is different in a way that he doesn’t have resources like Sartaj, and unlike Sartaj, he is not at all clued in about the larger conspiracy he has unknowingly been a part of. To be honest, the only driving force Chaudhary has is his curiosity, which the makers cheekily equates with a cat’s.
There is a top news anchor Sanjeev Mehra (Neeraj Kabi) hobnobbing with the corrupt and shady with a weird conviction of being righteous. Kabi, in his usual nuanced ways, makes you confused about his real character. The self-obsessed newsman is in for a shock when he discovers that he is the target of some assassins.
While seizing the opportunity for more TRPs, he slowly starts getting a hang of the situation, and what he finds out, simply robs him of sleep.
Creator Sudip Sharma’s show is unlike other Indian shows that make us happy with expected twists and usual progression. Paatal Lok goes beyond the obvious, and that’s where it shines.
Directed by Avinash Arun (Killa) and Prosit Roy (Pari), Paatal Lok’s strength lies in its detailing. ‘Jamna Paar’ area in Delhi, where it begins, has many layers of crimes and corruption. There’s a huge disparity between the Lutyens’ zone and trance Yamuna, and the show brings out many aspects of it through Ahlawat’s typical Delhi cop, down but not dusted.
Paatal Lok comes to its own with the backstories of its criminals. Abhishek Bannerjee’s Hathaura Tyagi (as hammer is his weapon of choice) could find a reflection in thousands of misguided youth who never knew any better. Though Bannerjee has played negative characters in shows such as Mirzapur and Typewriter, but his terrifying intensity and odd beliefs make this one to watch out for. It’s definitely a ground breaking role for him.
The writers have consciously kept Delhi mostly as a city of migrants from smaller towns in the Hindi belt. When harsh surroundings get better of them, they turn to crime for survival, and all this seems neutral and natural. For example, the two kids who meet on a train and remain there for each other through thick and thin, is a case study in itself. The casual attitude with which they see through sexual and mental abuses breaks heart.
Then there’s a Dalit boy from Punjab who would see Delhi’s underworld as an escape from his lived reality. What worse could happen!
It keeps getting darker and more vocal with an almost failed cop struggling to quench his thirst for more. It may also remind you of Navdeep Singh’s terrific Manorama Six Feet Under, where it kept getting bigger and more local. The show doesn’t look outside to seek answers, but tracks the footprints of its characters through an inward journey.
Even not so prominent characters like Swastika Mukherjee’s Dolly and Gul Panag’s Renu leave significant impact on the story. They keep adding new dimensions to Hathiram Chaudhary’s evolution. In fact, Panag’s excellent understanding of human behaviour comes to the fore when she confronts her brother for using her. No extra drama, but painfully penetrating.
Coming back to Jaideep Ahlawat, this is the role of a lifetime for him. His expressions don’t drop for a second even if he is chasing a goon with a duffle bag on his shoulders. He is the binding force to assemble all the clues and cues at one place. He takes the center stage only after the fifth episode, but once he does it, he absolutely nails it. It’s difficult to think anybody else in the character after Ahlawat. Top notch.
Paatal Lok is a reminder of the futility of our existence and that makes me sad, but as the coronavirus is teaching us, we might have to live within the bubble as it seems safe, at least for the time being. Binge Paatal Lok, it will help you survive.
The Girl on the Train relies on Parineeti Chopra and it’s a welcome change to see her in an intense role. However, the film doesn’t utilise all its chances.