Side Banner

Member Reviews

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough. Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.

You can also browse reviews using our alphabetical index of films reviewed

Films reviewed on this Page

Loveyapa (3)
Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal (1)
Mrs (2)
The Mehta Boys (2)
Thandel (1)
Bada Naam Karenge (1)

Page 1 of 65

Loveyapa
Anupama Chopra
The Hollywood Reporter India
While the film retains some of its original energy and features a lively soundtrack, Loveyapa ultimately feels stretched and superficial.
All 3 reviews of Loveyapa here

Loveyapa
Anuj Kumar
The Hindu
Junaid Khan and Khushi Kapoor toil in this shallow rom-com

Advait Chandan’s take on the ill effects of smartphones addresses a generation that expresses its deepest emotions through emojis

Smartphone is the new villain in love stories. Screenwriters looking for new obstacles for love birds have discovered social evils on the web. After Muddassar Aziz used phone swapping to generate humour in Khel Khel Main, director Advait Chandan recycles the Tamil hit Love Today to create a romantic comedy about the ill effects of social media and artificial intelligence on relationships in Loveyapa. Baani (Khushi Kapoor) and Gaurav (Junaid Khan) feel their romance is transparent till Baani’s father Atul (Ashutosh Rana) asks them to swap their phones before they exchange vows. As the phones get unlocked, it opens Pandora’s chat box with the video libraries and vaults of phones revealing secrets that both are not ready to overlook. Written by Sneha Desai, the film makes interesting observations on how the young generation is losing touch with reality and how there is a distinct difference in their online and offline character. In this game of choices, there is no gender divide. It also touches upon the issues of online fat shaming and the emerging scourge of deepfakes.

Continue reading …

All 3 reviews of Loveyapa here

Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal
Kirubhakar Purushothaman
News 18
An Incredibly Moving Family Drama Of Homecoming

When the three brothers meet after a long time expecting the death of their ailing mother, old scars, bittersweet nostalgia, and new problems surface in a poignant tale that invokes laughter and tears.

“Going home again" is a cinema trope that continues to string hearts despite being around for a while. It never becomes dated as everyone–even the ones staying in their hometown–longs to go back since home is never a place. It is a collection of memories of a place and time with people that’s lost. Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal (Narayani’s Three Sons) explores the popular adage: “You can never go home again." It isn’t there anymore because even the one, who is missing it, is not the same individual who once lived there. Sethu (Joju George), the middle son of Narayani, learns it the hard way when he tries to bring back his estranged brothers to their hometown, when their mother is on her deathbed, counting her days. The family reunion brings to the fore the old scars, nostalgic memories, and new problems, making up for an immense experience of laughter, tears, and profound thoughts.

Continue reading …


Mrs
Priyanka Roy
The Telegraph
Mrs is the kind of film that takes the best out of its source material and enhances it.

For those not in favour of remakes — I am one of them, considering most turn out to be a lazy copy-paste job — the decision to let go of Mrs because the memories of watching The Great Indian Kitchen are too sacrosanct, will not be unfounded. But Mrs is not just any other remake. It is a thriving, breathing, nuanced film in its own right. It is the kind of film that takes the best out of its source material and enhances it, setting itself in a socio-cultural context that is relevant and relatable. Mrs hits hard — just as hard as The Great Indian Kitchen did when it released at the tail-end of the first wave of the pandemic. The Malayalam film with a seemingly simple story of a newly-married woman struggling to fit into a conservative and patriarchal household, ignited conversations around gender roles, casual sexism, toxic relationships, male entitlement and a woman’s role in a world she is constantly stereotyped in. It became a mirror of the suffering that most Indian women, at some time or maybe all of the time, have been subjected to. In that film, what remained subtle and innocuous at first finally boiled over into rage that resulted in a moment of gut-wrenching catharsis. Like the woman at the centre of it, we felt elated, but we also cried.

Continue reading …

All 9 reviews of Mrs here

The Mehta Boys
Nonika Singh
The Tribune, Hollywood Reporter India
Complex Mehtaverse of father & son

‘The child is father of the man…’ Whatever William Wordsworth may have meant by that poetic expression, sons and fathers are as inextricably linked as a mother’s umbilical connection binds her to her children. Yet, fathers and sons are always on a tricky terrain, invariably perched on delicate ground, rarely common. “Is he an adult or a child?” — the question pops up from a perplexed son finding it difficult to get a grasp of his father’s whimsical ways. “He is your father, you are the child,” comes the honest reply from his girlfriend. Boman Irani, who has proved his mettle as an actor more than once, now comes with his directorial debut, ‘The Mehta Boys’, where he brings out the tensions immanent in a father-son relationship in the same nuanced manner which has marked his acting. After winning the Best Feature Film award at the Chicago South Asian Film Festival, the film is currently streaming on Prime Video, and is as much about the father-son conflict as it is about love and affection.

Continue reading …

All 3 reviews of The Mehta Boys here

The Mehta Boys
Uday Bhatia
Mint Lounge
Soft-edged drama lacks novelty

Boman Irani's directorial debut is a heartfelt but unexceptional film about a warring father and son

Boman Irani began acting in films in his 40s. From the start, it seemed like he’d always been there. He was a throwback to an earlier era of actors like Charles Laughton and Alex Guiness who were happy to disappear behind a wig, a fake nose, an accent. Irani could, of course, play it straight, like the father in Lakshya. But no one was better at going broad. His Khurana in Khosla Ka Ghosla and Asthana in Munnabhai M.B.B.S. are legend, but there’s a spectacular rogue’s gallery stretching from Darna Mana Hai to Don, Well Done Abba to Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd to Jayeshbhai Jordaar. Irani stars in The Mehta Boys and does a fine, fussy, fretful job. It’s also his first film as director, co-written with Alexander Dinelaris (Birdman) and co-produced by his company, Irani Movietone. It’s a polite little film about a recently bereaved family, emotionally available, a bit shapeless. Not all directors start with a big swing, but this is closer to forward defence.

Continue reading …

All 3 reviews of The Mehta Boys here

Thandel
Sangeetha Devi Dundoo
The Hindu
Sai Pallavi, Naga Chaitanya elevate a partly choppy romance saga

The swooning romance works hugely for the film, while other portions could have benefited from better writing

Some films focus less on plot and more on character-driven narratives. Thandel, the Telugu film directed by Chandoo Mondeti, is a prime example. Based on true incidents from a few years ago, in which fishermen from Andhra Pradesh unknowingly crossed international waters into Pakistan, the film weaves a love story that transcends all odds. The storyline, penned by Karthik Theeda, is straightforward, but Chandoo’s screenplay immerses viewers in the world of the fisherfolk, with an emotionally stirring romance — between Raju (Naga Chaitanya) and Satya (Sai Pallavi) — at its core. The poignant love story comes alive through the lead actors’ performances, complemented by Devi Sri Prasad’s evocative music, which serves as the film’s emotional anchor. But is that enough to overlook the weaker, more turbulent portions? Almost.

Continue reading …


Bada Naam Karenge
Bharathi Pradhan
Lehren.com
Old Fashioned Storytelling

Rishabh and Surbhi, brought together for an arranged marriage, share a secret bond formed during the Mumbai lockdown. Their journey explores love, tradition, and family ties in a small-town in Madhya Pradesh.

It’s the 90s world of Rajshri. A mansion. A joint family. A starchy patriarch/matriarch whose word is writ, everybody else shivers, cowers before the family dictator. Karan Johar put Amitabh Bachchan in that stern position in K3G and reversed the gender to give Jaya Bachchan the same unbending top place in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Step into the sprawling mansion of the Rathi parivar in Ratlam where Taoji (Kanwaljit Singh) is the stiff principled head of a large joint family. Like Karan Johar’s joint family in RARKPK, the Rathis too are renowned for their famous mithai. But Taoji’s rules are anything but meetha. More than four decades ago, there was a film called Ek Hi Bhool (1981). Those same 80s sentiments and ambience may be transplanted into the Rathi mansion and labelled, Ek Hi Jhooth. Taoji can never forgive a lie. His sister (Anjana Sukhani) is still paying the price for having fallen in love with someone outside their community. ‘It wasn’t about the community, it was her lying about it that Taoji cannot forgive,’ is underlined a couple of times. And in that claustrophobically tradition-bound ambience, the family is eternally grateful to Fufaji (Rajesh Tailang) who did them all a big favour for saving their reputation and marrying the tainted sister, now referred to as “Bua”.

Continue reading …


Mrs
Anupama Chopra
The Hollywood Reporter India
All 9 reviews of Mrs here

Loveyapa
Bharathi Pradhan
Lehren.com
Gen Z’s Cuppa

The chaos that unfolds when a couple swaps phones and starts uncovering painful truths about each other

It takes off on a merry note. There’s a request made to the audience (in Aamir Khan’s voice) about mobile phones: do not exchange yours with anybody else. It sets the tone for freshness. Spanking new content, young first-timers in the lead, parental scoldings you haven’t heard before and sometimes, chaotic humour. These are the four elements that make writer-director Advait Chandan’s conventionally labelled ‘romantic comedy’ unconventional. It’s new age all through. Buying a new phone, payment by phone. Constant chats. They know each other’s friends, families and house layout even before stepping into each other’s domains. “Baani boo, I can’t hear you.” “Gucci, awaaz nahi aa rahi hai.” Lovebirds Baani Sharma (Khushi Kapoor) and Gaurav Sachdeva (Junaid Khan) can’t hear each other clearly, he climbing the water tank to get a connection, she raising her voice at home.

Continue reading …

All 3 reviews of Loveyapa here