Member Reviews

In a scene in director Magizh Thirumeni’s Vidaamuyarchi, Ajith Kumar’s character Arjun, trying to move a stalled car from the road to the shoulder, wraps the car’s seat belt around him to push the vehicle safely. That, in a scene, encapsulates the film and the contribution of its lead actor to make it work. Walking out of the film, the biggest takeaway is how Ajith, the star who takes the road less taken when compared to his contemporaries off-screen, also pulls off the same with his choice of scripts. Irrespective of whether the payoff is worth the trade, it’s fun to see the star shed the vanity of stardom and surrender completely to the script in hand and that’s what makes Vidaamuyarchi work… almost. Heavily “inspired” by the 1997 Kurt Russell-starrer Breakdown, Vidaamuyarchi is the story of a couple whose road trip is interfered with by some uninvited guests and it’s up to the husband to save his kidnapped wife. More than a decade after Arjun (Ajith) and Kayal (Trisha) fell in love with each other and decided to tie the knot, the romance seems to have faded. When Kayal breaks the truth of having an affair and wants to file for divorce, Arjun decides to hit the road to drop Kayal at her parent’s place. Magizh layers the narrative by intercutting the journey of two strangers who fell in love 12 years ago, with the one last journey they take through the open roads of Azerbaijan.

The series Apple Cider Vinegar wastes no time in telling viewers that it is a true story based on a lie. Set in Australia, the limited series is based on the wellness culture that emerged in the 2010s, with pretty young women leading the charge and telling people how to eat and shape their lives. Created by writer Samantha Strauss, the drama looks beyond pretty pictures and nice fonts on social media to look at the real story of what these women were going through. The limited series follows two women, Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever) and Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), both of whom had crafted an inspirational image as survivors who had overcome ill health. The only difference was that one woman was lying about her cancer diagnosis. Apple Cider Vinegar, which is set at the rise of blogging and social media, especially Instagram, is also a time capsule about wellness culture, which rejected science and heralded the benefits of nature. Based on the book The Woman Who Fooled the World by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, creator Strauss has written the series with Anya Beyersdorf and Angela Betzien. Apple Cider Vinegar goes pretty deep into the backstories of Belle and Milla and shows why, while their intentions were well-meaning at first, it all snowballed out by the end.

Few films have boiled my blood like Jeo Baby’s The Great Indian Kitchen, which documents the daily drudgery a nameless, newly-married young woman undergoes as patriarchy claims another soul. Every single day, it’s the same routine. She cooks and serves all the meals, sweeps and mops the floor, washes the utensils and the clothes in a household whose men are only too happy to thrust down their ideas of a domestic goddess and shun any external assistance – help or home appliances. What plays out is a portrait of misery in monotony, imagine a reverse Perfect Days, wherein director Wim Wenders discovers poetry in the fixed pattern of a toilet cleaner in Tokyo as he goes about his daily chores and banal schedule across a gentle, meditative rhythm.

Written and directed by Adam J Graves, Anuja is one of five shorts nominated for an Oscar in the Best Live Action Short Film category. Backed by producers Guneet Monga, Mindy Kaling, and Priyanka Chopra, it gives viewers a glimpse into the lives of two young girls trying to survive in the city without much support. There is hope for the younger girl Anuja, and the film highlights the hard choice the little one must face: choosing herself or supporting her beloved sister Palak. In just 22 minutes, the short film takes us on an emotional journey. The short film focuses on two orphaned sisters, Anuja (Sajda Pathan) and Palak (Ananya Shanbhag), who work in a garment factory in Delhi. Child labour is illegal, but the owner, Mr Verma (Nagesh Bhonsle), flaunts the rules by lying about the ages of the younger children. An educator, Mr Mishra (Gulshan Walia), comes to the factory with the opportunity of a lifetime for the bright Anuja. If she can take and pass an admission test for a boarding school, she’ll receive a scholarship. But the fee for the test is Rs 400, which is a large sum for the sisters. Writer-director Graves straddles both the fictional and real worlds in this story. Made in conjunction with the Salaam Baalak Trust, which supports the street children of Delhi, Anuja turns a spotlight on the still-persistent issue of child labour. Poverty and a lack of education give rise to the problem that has been prevalent in India for decades. Still, Graves gives us a touching story about the unbreakable bond between the two sisters. The film begins with a fable about a farmer’s family and a pet mongoose, highlighting the virtues of bravery and sacrifice.

Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Putulnacher Itikatha or The Puppet’s Tale (part of the Big Screen Competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam this week) begins with a man on a boat, the twilight glistening in the swampy conditions surrounded by rural Bengal of the late 1930s. On the boat is Dr Shashi Bhuto (Abir Chatterjee), encountering his ancestral village and with it, death. “Everyone must face death someday”, his voiceover drones, insisting that he doesn’t, therefore, mourn. He lives a double life, one in his physical manifestation, as a doctor in a village in pre-Independence India, populated by people with little to no education and beset by all kinds of issues, from religious dogma, superstitions and lack of access to basic services amidst war in Europe and freedom struggle. His other life is in his head, his future he dreams of in a city, maybe London, as the affluent, posh doctor he wishes to be. In many ways, The Puppet’s Tale — adapted from Manik Bandopadhyay’s 1936 novel of the same name — is a curious film. It can be placed in the context of a particular time in India as well as a particular period in Indian cinema. It is set during a transitional, commotion-filled phase in modern Indian history — less than a decade for independence from British rule—with the movement touching every corner of the country. The film intentionally refrains from registering any of that. In cinema terms, it is almost two decades before Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, which itself is a certain rural time capsule of new India, followed by forced migration towards busier parts of the country. Here, Shashi’s existential crisis takes precedence over India’s own. That’s not to say he is unbothered by the condition of a country that is just about incubating. His existential crisis eats away at him, he holds dreams of moving to London to be the doctor that he wants to be instead of toiling away treating the local villagers who are sceptical about his methods.

The latest Prime Video release is the romantic comedy titled You’re Cordially Invited led by Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell. Directed and written by Nicholas Stoller, the film focuses on the story of two supporting characters at two different weddings aka the bride’s sister and another bride’s widowed father. They cross paths at the accidently double-booked wedding venue and the fight for the venue ensues. While the plot seems easy to explore in the comedy genre, the makers did present a new take on the situation. Instead of the fight going on before the wedding proceeds, the arguments go on throughout the wedding and after, taking away the urgency of the incident. The film begins with Will Ferrell’s character finding out that his young daughter is getting married to her boyfriend. While he isn’t exactly happy about it, he agrees because it would mean his daughter moves closer to home. On the other hand, Reese finds out her sister is getting married to her erotic dancer boyfriend. Supportive of the decision and wary of how the family would react, she agrees to look after the wedding planning. Both weddings are accidentally booked at the same resort on a small island for the same weekend.

By now, big stars teaming up for a streaming original film — mostly comedy, and made on a budget that makes you wonder about the recovery without a theatrical run — has become a mainstay. What’s been difficult is to shake off the tag that these films offer little entertainment compares to their big-screen counterparts. Films like Prime Video’sYou’re Cordially Invited tell you why this trend is, unfortunately, not a fad. Director Nicholas Stoller, the maker behind comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, The Five-Year Engagement and Bros, is back for another comedy headlined by powerhouses Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon. In You’re Cordially Invited, a single father, Jim (Will Ferrell), to get his daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) married off, books a small inn on Palmetto Island where he got married years ago. Concurrently, television producer Margot (Reese Witherspoon) finds out that her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) is planning on marrying and she volunteers to plan the wedding. She books the same Palmetto Island, where she and Neve visited their grandmother as children. Thanks to what can be only called a clerical error, both parties reach the island on the same day to learn about the double booking. While Jim and Margot initially decide to work it out by sharing the premises, their egos, insecurities, miscommunication, and many other mistakes play havoc.