Member Reviews

It’s not fair to call Lijin Jose’s Her, written by Archana Vasudev, an anthology. On the surface, these are the stories of five women taking place across five households in and around Thiruvananthapuram. The timelines are jumbled and these stories are set across different genres with at least one comedy, one satire and parts you can broadly call drama, each with its own mood and theme. Yet you feel conflicted by the thought of calling it an anthology because it never stops feeling like a unified whole, with the narrative smoothness of a well-written feature film (it’s edited by Kiran Das).

There couldn’t have been a more fitting title for the film that Sorgavaasal has turned out to be. When translated, it could be read as “At Heaven’s Gate”. This isn’t merely ironic, given how almost the entire film is set within the walls of a high-security prison. But the idea of being at arms length from heaven, as close as you are far, gives Sorgavaasal the illusion of it taking place in some sort of a purgatory. For some inmates, this idea of heaven is the day they’re released back into the outside world. For others, the exit sign points only towards death. But then there’s the third kind, like the man they all lovingly call ‘Cooker’ (Balaji Sakthivel), whose belief falls somewhere in between. When Parthi (RJ Balaji, as never seen before) cooks a delicious meal for the inmates, he asks Cooker why this isn’t the norm. Cooker replies, “If you start enjoying the food you’re being served here, you will feel no need to leave.”

Shoojit Sircar’s recent film work has been preoccupied with mortality. Shiuli’s freak accident and subsequent state determine the course of October (2018). Gulabo Sitabo (2020) is a comic look at death, with an ageing man hoping for the demise of his even older wife. And Sardar Udham is death-haunted, not just the historical fact of the protagonist’s execution but the guiding hand of the ghosts of Jallianwala Bagh.

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light (AWIAL) establishes its Mumbai DNA early on. A visibly-tired Anu (Divya Prabha), an upstart nurse in a city hospital, is jotting down details of a patient. Age? “24… oh no sorry, it’s 25,” a young woman says, holding on to her child. “Pfft!” reacts Anu, showcasing her mild annoyance for having to strike out what she’d written earlier.

“Will you dance at my wedding?”, a young Reya (Pearle Dey) asks her visibly-ill father, Arjun (Abhishek Bachchan), sitting in their backyard. Arjun used to be a high-flying, pragmatic, proud ad executive in Los Angeles, till one day he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. It’s a loaded question – especially for a still-squeaky voice. The initial prognosis gave Arjun 100 days to live. But he’s somehow lived his way through a few months, maybe even a year. While he awaits future surgeries, many things hang in the balance for Arjun, preventing him from giving Reya an answer. The scene ends with the father-daughter’s heavy silence, staring into a distance.

Neeraj Pandey’s Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is a face-off between two stubborn men played by Jimmy Shergill and Avinash Tiwary, both of whom believe they are in the right. The Hindi feature goes back and forth between their perspectives, and as the story goes from 2008 to 2003 after a diamond heist remains unsolved. The writer-director tries to get us emotionally invested in this twisty tale of wills, but the nearly two-and-a-half-hour film drags out its premise.

Earlier this year, the second part of Lindsay Lohan’s acting comeback commenced with Irish Wish. The actress played a woman who is about to watch her best friend marry her longtime crush in Ireland. This time, Lohan is back with another romantic dilemma in Our Little Secret. Taking place at Christmas, Lohan’s character Avery meets her ex Logan (Ian Harding) at her new boyfriend’s house. Hilarity is supposed to ensue, but there’s very little to laugh about.

The saying ’truth is stranger than fiction’ hits harder in films adapted from true-crime stories. The drama feature, Woman of the Hour, tells the unbelievable story of a serial killer who somehow ended up on a dating show as an eligible bachelor in the late 1970s. The shocking story is told by actress Anna Kendrick in her promising directorial debut that is sure to leave an impact.

Skydance Animation’s second film, Spellbound, updates family dynamics in a modern way, letting kids know that sometimes happily ever after doesn’t work out. Shrek director Vicky Jensen helms this refreshing but overlong story of a teenage girl trying to undo a spell on her parents that has turned them into literal monsters. The colourfully appealing but flat world of Lumbria makes way for a quest for the royal trio in this well-meaning musical.

12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen takes audiences through the life of a Londoner during the German blitzkrieg of their city during World War II. The Apple TV+ feature Blitz has more of a child’s perspective as a young boy named George escapes back to his mother after being sent away for evacuation. We see the good and bad of the times through his eyes as he loses his innocence during his misadventure.