Member Reviews

At a time when history is being fictionalised, director Rajkumar Santoshi uses creative licence to bust the canards that have been allowed to fester over the years to delegitimise Mahatma Gandhi in public conscience. From being called a pawn of the Empire to faking fasts, a notion has been created that Gandhi forced the first government of independent India to release Rs 55 crore to Pakistan. The film suggests that it triggered Nathuram Godse to kill Gandhi on January 30, 1948. Santoshi revisits the events leading up to Gandhi’s assassination and then takes a leap into an imaginary space where Gandhi survives the three bullets that Godse pumped into his chest and seeks a dialogue with him.

First impressions can be hard to change, but in Ponman most of our initial assumptions about the characters turn out to be wrong, as it happens in thoughtfully-written films. This change is not brought about by deceptive writing or staging of scenes, but it slowly gets revealed to us in the organic unravelling of the plot from one event to another. Nor is the change achieved through a quick whitewash job of characters we had judged harshly, but by consistently giving us those little pieces of information that would make us understand their actions in a better perspective.

“Where are we going?” six-year-old Charlie (Wyatt Solis) asks his father (John Magaro). Charlie, his elder sister Ella (Molly Belle Wright) are seated inside a car with their father within the first five minutes of the film. The kids have no idea where they’re headed. Cole Webley’s directorial debut is the kind of film where exposition comes at a premium. Information trickles down through stray scenes – the sheriff putting an eviction notice on their house right around the time they’re leaving tells us about the family’s dire financial situation. Ella tells Charlie she was taught to fly a kite by their mother before “she got sick” – explaining who the father talks to, grieving his partner, almost praying to her for forgiveness. When they’re at a store, and the father wishes to spoil his kids with a kite and a meal of their choice, the clerk informs him he has only $20 left on his food stamps.

Directed by Rosshan Andrrews led by Shahid Kapoor, the action thriller brings back the actor in his action avatar. The music and Shahid’s presence keep the movie going for most of its runtime. The writing in the first half is one of the biggest plus points for the first half but the second half falters taking away the film’s impact, but it doesn’t take away from Shahid’s performance. Deva’s silent hero remains a simplistic dialogue that doesn’t force punchlines but lets the actors put their best foot forward. The film begins with Deva revealing that he has found the killer and the case has been solved but before he can share more information he meets with an accident and loses his memory. Upon waking up he finds out he is a cop who was working on a very important case and now he is the only one who can trace back and find the killer.

A Satyajit Ray short story becomes the basis of ‘The Storyteller’, an unhurried unspooling of an unlikely relationship between two men, separated by geographies, backgrounds, and, most crucially, intent. The result is a film which takes its time to lay out its wares, demanding your patience, which does get a trifle stretched, but overall rewards you for it. Tarini Bandhopadhyaya (Paresh Rawal) is a 60-something Bengali gent who loves fish and hates capitalism with equal passion. Ratan Garodia (Adil Hussain) is a Gujarati businessman who has everything except the comfort of sleep.

A bunch of cops in Mumbai track down the killer of a fellow officer, opening up several cans of worms. That, more or less, was the thrust of the Roshhan Andrrews-directed Mumbai Police (2013), headlined by Prithviraj Sukumaran. Another bunch of cops in Mumbai do the same, broadly, in the 2025 ‘Deva’, also by the same director. From what I remember of the original, there seem to be several scenes which are exact replicas, but for some strange reason, the filmmakers have taken great pains to prevent themselves, as well as anyone else, dubbing the Shahid Kapoor starrer a remake.

‘Sabar Bonda’ is the story of two young men, finding their way back to each other. It is also a story of grief and acceptance, told with warmth and piercing sensitivity. Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) accompanies his mother to their ancestral Maharashtrian village from Mumbai, for the ten-day mourning period after the death of his father. He is back after a sizable gap, but the reason for his staying away starts up again: ‘potential brides from good homes’ are back on the table, and Anand finds himself struggling, like he did before, for a way to tell his relatives that he’s gay. ‘Sabar Bonda’ has a couple of firsts to its credit. It is self-taught filmmaker Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s debut feature, and the first Marathi film chosen to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, whose 41st edition is currently underway.

Cactus Pears (Sabar Bonda), Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s semi-autobiographical debut feature about a queer romance experienced amid mourning is the only movie from India competing at the Sundance Film Festival. The story of love and grief in a rural setting came to Kanawade while coping with his own father’s death, as he wondered how different processing the loss might have felt if he had a companion with whom to escape. Regardless of the competition’s outcome in the World Cinema Dramatic category, this movie is already historic as the first Marathi-language film to premiere at the festival. Using the word “disruptive” doesn’t feel quite accurate for Cactus Pears, yet there is something tenderly disruptive in this compelling drama, an undeniable rebellion running through its DNA. Open and uninhibited expressions of love are not encouraged in most Indian households, especially when either the receiver or giver is a man. It may be a bit of a generalization, but most Indian patriarchs raise the male members of their families to become disciplinarians and household bosses. Hints of soft and tender emotions only get in the way.

Actor and director Basil Joseph has been on a winning streak. He opened his account in 2025 with a crime thriller, Pravinkoodu Shappu, and followed it with Ponman, which is a family drama with a tinge of suspense. Ponman is adapted from GR Indugopan’s novel titled Nalanchu Cheruppakar. And, it brilliantly captures the struggles of underdogs and how their lives are beyond materialistic things. Gold dealer PP Ajesh (Basil Joseph) lends 25 sovereigns of gold to Bruno’s family for his sister Setti Graf’s (Lijomole Jose) wedding. He signs an agreement with Steffi’s family that he will take the money that is gifted to the bride. If the money didn’t add up to the gold he lent, he would recover the jewellery to compensate. Bruno’s impulsive behaviour leads to fewer people coming to Steffi’s wedding and, eventually, they fall short of money.

Created by Charlie Day, Megan Ganz, and Rob McElhenney, Mythic Quest returns after a long gap. Its last season premiered in November 2022. But for all intents and purposes, the show has never wavered. The executives and creatives working at Mythic Quest Studios have their own quests to overcome this season. Creatives Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) work on an expansion to their game that just might drive them apart, while the rest of the gang faces some professional setbacks as well. Studio boss David Brittlesbee (David Hornsby) tries to push the company towards more profits, while the creative gang of Ian, Poppy, and Dana (Imani Hakim) face a breaking point of their own in their careers. This fourth season explores the dynamics of the employee versus company, with each side facing some wins and losses. Creative and personal partnerships also go through a change as Poppy and Ian find themselves unable to work with each other and girlfriends Dana and Rachel (Ashly Burch) learn boundaries. The best thing about Mythic Quest is the actors are also creatively involved behind the scenes, which adds to the collaborative effect of the series. Hornsby and Burch have worked on the scripts, while Nicdao, Hakim, Danny Pudi, and Burch again have sat in the director’s chair this season. The fourth episode directed by creator Ganz is the standout as it cleverly employs each character in a murder mystery party scenario while moving the story forward. Another plotline where Ian and Poppy use AI models of themselves to argue with one another was hilarious.