I like the concept of alternate reality, the ‘What If’ philosophy. And I don’t remember if Bollywood has ever pulled such a string and that too for a historical incident. Gandhi’s assassination is an ultra-sensitive case because Gandhi’s devotees guaranteed the flagship of secular patriotism and strengthened its roots in the Congress party. But Godse the assassin belonged to Hedgewar‘s right-wing Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Malaviya‘s political party Hindu Mahasabha. So Godse and his fellow devotees holds the flagship of Hindutva patriotism. This ideology gave birth to Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980 and since then, Congress and BJP became bitter political rivals.
The reason for watching this film was to observe how would Gandhi have led the newly freed India from the British Raj and what would Godse have done after failing to assassinate Gandhi. The film marked comeback of director Rajkumar Santoshi after a 10-year hiatus but my observation about the film is that the story and screenplay was too soft. Gandhi-Godse exchanged interesting debate but it lacked intensity. Godse who carried fury to shed blood and kill the Mahatma was like a heartbroken boyfriend in front of Gandhi in the prison.
The film completely lost the grip when Gandhi is imprisoned by his own loyalists and is actually allowed to put in Godse’s cell on Gandhi’s request. The story did conclude with a politically poetic end and Rajkumar Santoshi smartly left their fate open in loose ends.
CLOSING REMARKS
Did ‘Gandhi Godse’ serve the purpose? The idea was brilliant but I am afraid the story failed to revise the complex history. If I was offered to make a film based on such ‘What If’, I would have uprooted Gandhi and Godse from the pages of history to the 21st century India as the spirits in the middle of some riots and make them argue about the present India and their ideologies.
The performances were below-par and A. R. Rahman‘s score was stereotypical, nothing special nor innovative. An impressive pitch that failed in the presentation.
RATING 2.5/10
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Business tycoon Ashish Kapoor (AK) invites his family and close friends to his residence in a Scottish castle and throws a birthday party one day. Each of the invitees has a different kind of dispute with him. Meanwhile, AK also invites a CBI officer Mira Rao to arrest him for running away from his home country over non-payment of salaries to his 10,000 employees and owing 200 billion rupees to the Indian banks.
The party does not proceed as planned and AK infuriates everyone. But to everyone’s shock, AK dies in mysterious circumstances. Mira senses that one of the invitees murdered AK. So Meera investigates the crime, searches for the culprit, and judges their neeyat.
Like every critic and audience of the film, I will also raise a similar theory that ‘Neeyat‘ highly reminds me and looks to be inspired from ‘Knives Out‘ and ‘Glass Onion‘ as well as Agatha Christie‘s narrative style of detective novel. Knives Out was released worldwide in the last quarter of 2019, so it is highly likely that director Anu Menon would have taken the inspiration and presented her version of Knives Out but without giving the credit to be Knives Out’s official remake. But taking inspiration from Glass Onion is very unlikely because that was released by the end of 2022. Whereas Neeyat was released 7 months after Glass Onion.
A CAST WITHOUT BLAST
In any case, Neeyat comes with an interesting story with a talented cast but surprisingly, Anu Menon fails to thrill me because the entire murder mystery was badly written and directed. I felt if the makers had zero passion to rock my world for at least 90 minutes and drop my inquisitiveness towards drawing the line of suspense and head towards a shocking revelation.
What also astound me was the actors in the film being over-dramatic. No one bothered to drive us into contemplation by their performances. They were just rich on the camera but not by acting skill. Actors like Neeraj Kabi, Shahana Goswami, Rahul Bose, Amrita Puri, and Ram Kapoor left no impression at all.
Vidya Balan in the lead as Mira Rao was the only who did favor and after a really shocking revelation, her being so bad as a CBI officer made sense. Now when I rewind a few moments of her character’s body language against every development of that day, her strange attitude completely makes sense.
BAD EXECUTION
What goes wrong with the film is the poorest execution of the entire script that certainly held promises. First of all, Neeyat was unfit to be made as a film. It should have been a limited series. Second, the appearance of a huge casting for the film breaks the spine because neither many characters grew with time, nor they developed with others in the same room. And this is a vital reason why Neeyat must have been a limited series. Third, the developments built no tension at all. If someone got killed besides AK, it didn’t crash the audience. The screenplay was sagging. Fourth, as per my calculation, it took 53 minutes to officially kick off the main purpose of the story. Not that if 53 minutes were spent in building the tempo before the crime. It was just not pacing with so many characters indirectly demanding to have their respective screen minutes.
CLOSING REMARKS
Project Neeyat is a plan failed by its engineers and contractors. The hired labors not utilized properly. A magician forgetting his trick or Genie disappearing from the lamp. Neeyat is a failed concert with the spectators walking out and Vidya Balan on the drum watching her band leaving with drumsticks in her hands hanging in the air.
RATING 4/10
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A highly promising cricketer Anina is selected for team India to tour England but she meets a tragic accident that causes her to lose her right hand. When she gives up on her career, enters former cricketer Paddy who revives her dream to play for her country when he trains her as an orthodox left-arm spinner.
‘Ghoomer‘ is a fictional sports drama that took inspiration from the Hungarian shooter Károly Takács whose right hand was severely injured in a grenade explosion during World War II but went on to win two Olympic Gold medals by shooting from his left hand.
PLUSES
Coming up with such a fascinating story is a definite plus. The credit must be given where it is due. The other pluses are Abhishek Bachchan‘s performance, Amit Trivedi‘s main theme, and the dramatization of human resilience and the determination and the extreme hard work of achieving something unthinkable and believing in the dreams.
MINUSES
As a critic, I must also highlight why ‘Ghoomer’ ghoom my expectations. Unsurprisingly, there are more minuses than pluses in my observation. One major fault is a bizarre setup of the actual world because anything is certain to happen in Bollywood. Shabana Azmi who plays Anina’s grandma is more of cricket analyst than her grandmother. My criticism is that the emotional value of a grandmother was brutally lacking. Especially, when Anina met accident and then considering whether getting trained from Paddy was the right decision or not.
And then a heavily drunk club member Paddy to whom everyone respects despite his ill behavior God knows why. How such person is allowed to enter the ground and mix up with junior cricketers? How Anina’s family accepted Paddy’s presence at home to meet her in her room? Paddy was responsible for Anina’s fate. How was Anina’s father speaking highly about him to Anina?
How come Anina’s tragic accident never reached to the news media? After all, she was getting selected for the national team. Losing her hand immediately after getting selected was a massive news that would have rocked the nation. She daily practiced at Paddy’s yard later and no news channel or media rep caught such a sensational development. How come no investigation was carried out over Anina’s accident? Why no police went in search for the mysterious car that hit Anina?
If any of you noticed, in plenty of sequences, Ghoomer preferred to be too musical than exchanging dialogues. Observe the first half an hour, over paced screenplay, lame soft humor, and no build-up in the making of Anina, the future face of Indian women cricket team.
And the final half an hour provide you the cringiest aesthetics of a cricket match. No surprises at all and Anina’s predictable heroic performance. When Anina’s improvised bowling action is revealed, almost everyone starts spinning like her, even the spectators of the rival team, even the patient and the doctor while watching TV. Although, this all is likely to happen but my problem is why Bollywood has to make a cricket match a larger-than-life entertainer. Why a cricket match in the Indian film always loses a quality screenplay? Why this becomes a circus show? First of all, how is Anina selected for the national team? She was not even tried for local matches.
Saiyami Kher as Anina was the heart of the story but the performance was below par. Her facial expressions and dialogue delivery are poor. The only plus about her acting was that she did learn to bat and played some good shots.
CLOSING REMARKS
R. Balki had a good run of films at the beginning of his directional career. The story pitch in his recent films is still impressive but the execution in recent years has been disappointing. Ghoomer’s middle portion was more impressive than the beginning and the ending phases. The film chose to entertain rather than give a thoughtful piece of intelligent sports tale.
RATING 4/10
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When Japan is close to the Second World War, a giant reptilian monster shows up on one of the islands. Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the horrors of the bloodshed it created that day. That giant monster is called Godzilla.
REVIEW
Godzilla Minus One is the first live-action Godzilla film from Japanese production and distribution company Toho since Shin Godzilla in 2016 and thirty-third overall. And has no connection with the Monsterverse of the Legendary Pictures that mostly involves Godzilla and Kong.
Although, Monsterverse has done justice and we finally got to see the frightening existence of Godzilla in the most suitable setup of the universe. But I think this was about time that Godzilla must had an equally competitive narration and setting in its Japanese roots. But golly! Godzilla Minus One made a Godzilla film much better than the Monsterverse.
No wonder how spectacular are visual effects in Monsterverse but I have been criticizing this universe for years that the human factor of this universe has always looked dragged in such an amazing Kaiju-action showdown. Monsterverse is now five films and ten years old but the human writing still has not grabbed or captivated any interest. The human angle in this universe has been annoying.
But Godzilla Minus One has a potential story where Godzilla itself is second to humans. This is about an already struggling and suffering post-World War Japan getting further nuked by this scary colossus. The Japanese are not ready for this kind of wrath and the scientists and military are jointly devising an ultimate plan to bring it down. And then there is poor Shikishima who already was suffering from PTSD given by Godzilla and now has distanced his close company Noriko from him by the atomic breath.
I say close company for Noriko because in all honesty, her relation with Shikishima was confusing. They were neither friends nor developed any romanticism. I think with so much destruction on their world to suffer, they were the need of the hour for each other and held tremendous respect. But one of the rare minuses of the film is that Noriko survived with injuries on her right eye and the right arm. How is that even possible? But wait. What is that black thing revealing on her neck?
The biggest accomplishment of Godzilla Minus One is winning the Oscar for the Best Visual Effects becoming the first Japanese film to win this particular award and the first Godzilla film ever to win an Oscar. Imagine a five-film Monsterverse not winning in ten years but the Japanese team of VFX winning it one go. You can realize how superior was the work on Godzilla and the entire visual creation that included blasts and destructions.
This Godzilla looks more terrific and terrifying than the one in America. Observe the work on the lightning spikes and when the flesh of Godzilla regenerates. The only plus of the American Godzilla over the Japanese one is that the former easily has the best roar in the films than the latter.
CLOSING REMARKS
I think Godzilla Minus One is an innovative arc of storytelling where a gripping emotional storyline is set in a war-torn Japan and has a strong reliability on a very sound visual effects based on a fiction, a legend, a monster. The film has deep human affection, a trauma of war and a larger-than-life shocking incident. I do not believe a monster story has ever been taken so seriously with a quality filmmaking.
Remember, this is a Japanese monster film that reached the global audience especially the West. The popularity of the film was enormous. And Japan nailed that in a comparatively extremely low budget for a VFX-bound action film. It is a win for the monstertainment cinema and the audience.
RATING 8.7/10
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In 1964, two rival food manufacturing companies, Kellogg’s and Post, tried to outdo each other to launch a highly-awaited breakfast, a never-heard-before ‘Toaster Pastry‘. Yes, you read that right! ‘Unfrosted‘ is about the birth of the toaster pastry. The film is about the competition for launching the best breakfast product in the cereal market.
KELLOGG’S/POST
Before I jump into my review, I would like to take you in the past and brief you about why Kellogg’s and Post are rivals for more than hundred years in the business.
In the early 1900s, the founder of Post, C. W. Post was accused of stealing several of Kellogg’s recipes. And the varieties Post offered were highly successful, Just like Kellogg’s.
As they competed for decades, Kellogg’s got their chance to produce a better breakfast food than Post when in February 1964, Post announced an upcoming toaster pastry ‘Country Squares‘. The problem was that Post was not ready to produce and distribute for the market shelves. So their announcing it to the world was a massive blunder that allowed Kellogg’s to utilize the time and take the advantage and release the first-ever toaster pastries called Pop-Tarts.
‘Country Squares’ miserably failed in front of Pop-Tarts, so Kellogg’s actually rubbed their success on their face. Most remarkably, C. W. Post’s daughter Marjorie Post was the head of the company that time. So Kellogg’s gave them the history lesson that their pride and legacy was built on stealing what was their’s.
TART & JERRY
This event truly deserved a film or a limited series and I was very excited to know that none other than Jerry Seinfeld was making his live-action as well as directional debut for this. Fully aware of the quality of humor he has written and made us laugh around the world for decades, I was eager to understand how this funny man will sell his jokes based on this story.
So the first glimpse of his venture was when the trailer was released. And when I watched that trailer, I felt this was a lame spoof. Flat jokes, washed-up acts. So I had a bad feeling that ‘Unfrosted’ will not live up to the expectations. So now I have watched it and I guess I was wrong. ‘Unfrosted’ is not a lame spoof at all, it is a disaster.
What went wrong? Execution, that went wrong. The direction and the screenplay were way below-average. A carelessly written story that clearly showed that Jerry’s concentration was to make the audience laugh than sell the narration. Due to this reason, the comic lines turned out to be awful and boring.
Making the film a parody of the true event and keeping it mostly inaccurate was a big mistake. Jerry was either devaluing a great landmark in the American history of cereal breakfasts or struggling to put his situational comedy fit into the continuity. Whoever watches this film will definitely think for once that something is really off about ‘Unfrosted’.
And I would have loved to adding historical accuracies about the film but I decided against it because the film was intentionally made as fictitious.
CASTING
You may say an ensemble casting but for me, ‘Unfrosted’ also suffered with wrong choices starting from Jerry Seinfeld himself. Everyone knows including Jerry himself that he cannot act. In Seinfeld, Jerry was the weakest link whose ass was superbly covered by the other three. This time, there was no force to hide his inability. And then the two leading actresses of the film were Melissa McCarthy and Amy Schumer. Maybe the audience like them but in all honesty, they don’t fall in my radar at all. I also couldn’t buy Bill Burr as JFK. Was he really resembling him with the wig? Was he? Or maybe that was the whole point, to make things look silly.
Also, I feel gutted that none of the Seinfeld biggies showed up. The one who deserved the most for the presence was the now-disgraced actor Michael Richards. This certainly was the platform where Jerry must have brought him back and done the favor as he did before.
CLOSING REMARKS
After watching ‘Unfrosted’ falling apart and viewing Jerry’s jokes struggling to tickle, I begun to analyse Jerry’s well-built legacy. Certainly not insulting or discrediting him as ‘Unfrosted’ will never damage my connection with Seinfeld. But maybe it is time that we recognize Larry David more than Jerry Seinfeld to be the one who gave that show its distinguished rank amongst other shows.
Jerry Seinfeld and ‘Unfrosted’ struggled to please the audience as much as they can. They went extremely soft and focused on entertaining. Consequently, it resulted in a confused story-telling. I am not sure if Jerry will feel regret about returning to the screen but most of the viewers like me will feel utterly disappointed. I certainly didn’t expect the film to bring that Seinfeld magic at all. It is just that the entire construction collapsed to its foundation. The sugar-coating went too far.
RATING 1.5/10
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In the times of the pandemic, officer Preksha investigates the murder of a builder Dayanand Pande that leads to the disappearance of an employee who worked in his factory. She has been missing since Pande’s murder and her name is also Preksha.
‘Minus 31: The Nagpur Files‘ is a crime drama about two struggling free-spirit daughters. One is a cop whose work is distracted by her sentiments. The other is a street rapper who wants to get famous overnight.
This is a small-budget film with a different story and clearly a different execution. One can observe that the director Pratik Moitro tried to relate things in the screenplay. Set in a pandemic period, you will watch some careful details like a sanitizer dispenser not working in the police station, and women clanking steels in the society to make corona disappear.
Minus 31 should be considered a female-oriented film due to the fact that both Prekshas scream their identity and existence in a holistic nature of social circumstances. The hip-hop Preksha had not much choice of her own freedom due to her grandfather and couldn’t make out her own way where she was employed.
Inspector Preksha was also less optimistic due to her retired amputated father, and receiving not enough cooperation in solving a crime case that involved politician. That affected her health and was missing her cycle. Her periods were getting delayed. The stress of it was pretty evident. She also had no mother so she expressed her periods problem with her father. This is something unusual, I cannot recollect a memory of watching such instance before. And the scene was not exaggerated but was dramatized as usual so that the makers humbly addressed the audience that in such cases, women can address their problems with their fathers.
The father-daughter chemistry was so natural. Once, the father heavily scolds her over getting suspended and starts complaining her existence. Preksha pushes him and bursts out.
I like the pressing over cleaning the mess on the floor by roomba at a wealthy residence of Dayanand Pande. One’s necessity is other’s luxury. It amazes to those who cannot afford but keep it in the life plans. By the end of the film, you will see a roomba in Preksha’s apartment.
As I mentioned a wealthy residence, there is an interesting shot where Inspector Preksha walks between the horns and at the very same time, Mrs. Pande walks down from the other side. Maybe I am observing way too much but I found that shot attractive.
There was another shot when Inspector Preksha chases down Sandy for a few seconds from the pharmacy. The way it was shot, Pratik Moitro would have made the chase more thrilling if this chase was a one-shot for half-a-minute from Preksha’s angle.
CLOSING REMARKS
It is not coincidence that the two important characters of the film were named Preksha. While trying to solve the case, Preksha found similitude in Preksha and therefore she began to find a purpose. Surprisingly, the film concluded on a high note.
‘Minus 31’ is a heavy thunder but without black clouds. The director’s effort is there and you can see honesty in presenting the story with sharp aesthetics but I feel the story needed more spark. The background score and cinematography is a plus.
But the biggest plus is Rucha Inamdar as Inspector Preksha who deserves the praise for giving us an honest portrayal of a policewoman who is stuck in the line of duty, health, and household. Scuffling with personal predicament, her character looks more relatable and human.
RATING 6.5/10
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Resurrected by the scientist Dr. Baxter, Bella cruises with a lawyer Duncan across the continents for an adventure seeking liberation.
‘Poor Things‘ is, basically, a novel by Alasdair Gray that he wrote back in 1992. So it is the work of literature that is turned into drama and is technically the most vibrant source of a complex narration. Director Yorgos Lanthimos returns with his usual absurdist form of science-fiction.
‘Poor Things’ is Alice in a Neverland in a kaleidoscopic dream. I tried to make sense from the fictional university of this wonderful cinema but I slipped to nonsense in the name of creativity and Yorgos’ artistry.
In a very advanced Victorian London, Dr. Baxter tests Bella who was pregnant and committed suicide. He brings her back from the dead and gives her her own fetus’s mind by replacing her brain with that of her fetus. With time, Bella shows incredible mental progress. She gets engaged with Dr. Baxter’s assistant Max but after one meeting with the lawyer Duncan, she runs away on a long adventure where she breathes a new world. But during all this, she has no knowledge about what actually happened with her.
The film, with all its mind-blowing technical excellence, mesmerizes me. But the story provokes me to question what exactly is the message of the film. Is it just entertainment? Must I stay disconnected with such an unusual enchantment of a bizarre world?
Unsure about what the novelist or the director wanted with the subject. Maybe we all are on the same page but I think that ‘Poor Things’ has lifted a woman from the floor and showed a harsh reality about how the woman is expected or hoped to exist in the world order. Almost all the men were cruel and unkind to woman. Every man Bella trusted, broke her heart. Dr. Baxter brought her back to life but as a subject. Max had an affection but didn’t reveal the secret of her existence. Duncan used her for pleasure and regretted when he realized what she was. Husband Alfie was a sadist who imprisoned her.
As Bella seeks freedom but on her own terms, ‘Poor Things’ emphasizes on social inequalities. When Duncan loses all his money because of Bella and has no place to live, she sell her soul to repay him. Does he accept? No. When Bella presses for choosing her customers on her own terms, she is told that she is being an idealist but she must give in to the demands of the world. The hard line by her owner is that “Some men enjoy that you do not like it”. Bella’s body is squeezed for pleasure by mostly old men who come in all sizes.
I think ‘Poor Things’ lost the grip in the middle. Particularly, when she joined the brothel. Too much time was stretched over her experience with the customers. I get the point of dramatizing all this but twenty minutes is awful stretch. The story was moving nowhere at this point.
EMMA STONE
Emma Stone stole the show as Bella. The entire body language and facial expressions were terrific. With the brain of a child in an adult woman’s body, Emma left no space in the character. The behavioral attitude was so spot on. Just watch her performance when Bella experiments her first sense of pleasure on the table. When she gets excited over a piece of music in the party and dances wildly. Or when she winks Duncan. Or when she gets furious with the doctor. Or receives the doctor excitedly. Clearly looks to be Emma Stone’s most enthralling performance to date, she was the perfect candidate to win the Oscar for the Best Actress.
CLOSING REMARKS
Poor Things has a storytelling in aesthetics that envisions me if Robert Eggars and Tim Burton had a brunch one day and decided to draw the pictures and set a sequence of the drawings into a story. The visual design of the film is spectacle.
I think ‘Poor Things’ has conveyed the message in a Yorgos way. Even the absurd humor has a strange excitement. I recommend the audience of the abstract and surreal cinema to watch ‘Poor Things’.
RATING 8.5/10
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During the coronavirus pandemic, the government ordered nationwide lockdowns including checkpoints at the borders. Inspector Surya Kumar Singh Tikas is tasked to control one of the checkpoints but thousands of travelers get stuck on that border because they are not allowed to cross. The consequences are heavy. The impatience leads to frustration and people begin to quarrel, blame, and protest.
REVIEW
Bheed
I am not sure if the film “Bheed” is based on a true geographical event but if I assume that it is fictional, then the incidents in this fictional event represents one of the million stories that occurred in India, and one of the billion stories in the world. Bheed plays at least five different stories in the same parallel. Due to this reason, the growth of the characters are challenging within two hours of the screentime. Moreover, Bheed has another challenge that the screenplay must not exhaust the viewers because almost an entire film is shot on the checkpoint.
Although the film didn’t do well at the box-office because it was understandable that the audience do not wish to spend the time on a severe depression that recently haunted almost every one in the world. But frankly speaking, it is an absurd reason if I consider that’s the case. Bheed, in its full potential, served the purpose. The dramatization of tension building was remarkable, the panic in the crowd was impressively alarming, and the emotions were rightly despair.
BLACK AND WHITE
The one aspect that I found very impressive about Bheed is that the director Anubhav Sinha chose to make this film black and white. As an observer, there can be two reasons. One is that the migration in the film will heavily remind you of the partition era. Second, the colorless theme can represent the national tragedy. Such creative aesthetics indicate that the filmmaker is serious about conveying a message to the audience. And I like that spirit when the film-making artistry is taken too serious.
A POTENTIAL BEST SCENE
There is a scene where a sudden noise among the crowd erupts and Inspector Tikas has to run to check what happened and it is the police that sanitizes people by showering them. I wish if I was Anubhav’s assistant so I would have suggested him to make that a one-shot scene from Tikas’ angle running the entire route of the noisy crowd until that mark of sanitizing them. I know that could have been a very difficult shooting but that is the beauty. What’s the fun if the director has to shot the film plain and simple. My suggested shot would have been the best Bollywood scene of the year 2023.
THE DAUGHTER
I think the best of all stories was the hopeless cycle riding of a young daughter and drunk father. Their survival was not imminent but were not giving up. It was strange that only one car spotted them riding towards a different route. And this was followed by that car following them until a very moving scene caught our attention when the driver of the car refused to obey his madam and helped them cross the route. This was an important message to the audience coming from the global disaster. On such a cruel planet, the natural disasters are the only certain situations where strangers help each other out.
THE TROUBLEMAKER
But then there are circumstances where people do not allow helping each other. Balram Trivedi is one such character who provoked the harmony twice. When the Muslims aided the Hindus with food, Balram snatched all the packets and returned. It was too late to realize and regret that he was wrong and then the packets were distributed somewhere. When he couldn’t borrow the time of feeding them by not dropping his ego, he chose desperate violence of invading the mall nearby which was illegal and unacceptable. Had he allowed the Muslim aid, the circumstances would have not gone worse.
CLOSING REMARKS
The commercial failure of Bheed gives a wrong reflection on the choices of the audience. Because the film had technical brilliance in direction, story, screenplay, cinematography, and editing. The dialogues, the major performances especially of Rajkummar Rao as Tikas and Pankaj Kapur as Balram, and even the closing in the final 20 minutes were impressive. So forget the box-office and do yourself a favor, watch Bheed on Netflix.
Bheed successfully shows how the pandemic still cannot defeat the caste system, the religious conflicts, and the prejudices. People still find reasons to raise hatred and squabble by differentiating. Perhaps, the humans fighting over stupid reasons is a bigger pandemic than the pandemic.
RATING: 8.2/10
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An Indian couple from Kolkata in Norway loses the custody of their two children to the country’s Child Welfare Service when the latter fail them for ‘incompetent parenting’. ‘Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway‘ is a legal drama that is based on a real life story of Sagarika Bhattacharya who fought against the state to get her children back.
REVIEW
Without a doubt, the event is real and not fiction but my concern is the micro-detailing of the real event that doesn’t buy me tokens of belief in the screenplay. As for example, the draconian portrayal of the child welfare institute. There was no neutrality, Norway looked like some devilish state offering no tolerance to the foreigners. Mrs. Chatterjee who wakes up after an unconscious collapse, grabs her husband’s mobile, runs away from the institute with no camera and security detecting her escape. The most outrageous of all wrongs was the ladies of the welfare service running away with their children as if they were kidnapping.
I have no knowledge if the real Mrs. Chatterjee somehow took her kids from a foster house and ran away from Norway to Sweden. I also have zero knowledge about the Indian side of the film if the relatives signed any treaty with Norway disallowing the mother to get her children from the relatives. As an observer, all these scenes looked sensationalized. If all that is actually true, my severe sympathy with Ms Sagarika Bhattacharya. Then I say that the directional execution of the entire story was ordinary.
The film began with a boring BANG! that Mrs. Chatterjee runs towards the welfare car to get her children from them. And then the flashback focuses how it all started. You could have simply started the film with the welfare ladies making the final visit at the Chatterjees and spending at least five minutes of their formal conversation making the audience uncomfortable and clueless that something is really looking off in this meeting. And then BOOM! the ladies breaking the dreadful news to the couple of taking their children. The parents losing their Goddamn minds and protesting the decision. Getting panicked and protecting their children from them. Making panic calls here and there. This is how the film should have started.
I don’t know why is this film in Hindi. The Bengali couple speaking in Hindi with each other didn’t look right at all. The film must have been in Bengali and Norwegian languages with Hindi limited only to the third person. Speaking of the language, the High Court scenes of India are dramatized in Kolkata. I am not sure if Hindi is used in the high court of the West Bengal state or not.
I happen to notice an extremely silly mistake in the film. The first scene of the Kolkata High Court shows the arrival of the judge in the court. In the first line where Mrs. Chatterjee is benched, two legal representatives are appearing. In a few seconds, we observe there is only one and the prosecution lawyer is actually missing. She is shown to have arrived late to the court due to heavy traffic. And the prosecution lawyer, I was stunned and really thought that Mamta Kulkarni has returned to the silver screen after decades. But I was mistaken, she is Balaji Gauri.
RANI MUKHERJEE
I think Rani Mukherjee was a very good choice for Mrs. Chatterjee. For a mother who was traumatized by the authorities for taking her children, a restless translation of injustice, Rani brilliantly gave us a tragic motherhood appeal. You may feel annoyance about her mental outburst making the case of the Welfare Service stronger but this is the type of a frustrated mother Rani was roped in to.
CLOSING REMARKS
Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway deserved a better screenwriter and a director. The story had every potential to turn into an exceptional courtroom drama. Perhaps, a limited series would have done justice, only if the writing was genuine.
RATING 4/10
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Shalini takes admission in a college and befriends three other girls in her hostel. One of her roommates Asifa successfully manipulates and misguides Shalini and another girl Geethanjali towards Islam and destroys their lives in deception by love jihad. Consequently, hell breaks on them while seeking heaven.
BACKLASH
‘The Kerala Story‘ sparked nationwide criticism and ignited deadly religious tension in India. Several petitions were filed at the Kerala High Court, the Madras High Court, and the Supreme Court of India to ban the film. Eventually, the West Bengal government banned the film for hate speech.
Although, countless films have been produced in India for decades about Islamic terrorism and the militants waging a holy war or a crusade against India funded by Pakistan. The speciality of ‘The Kerala Story’ is that the film worked on the audience as a reminder to distance themselves from the Muslim community because there is every deliberate chance of pushing you towards Jihad. And especially, if you are a non-Muslim female, then be prepared to spread your legs for “Muslim Mujahideen” as one of the babas suggests in the film to the young recruits to impregnate the girls.
I do not deny about the forced conversions of non-Muslims towards Islam worldwide. This is happening in many countries. And let me inform you that forced conversion is not only a Muslim thing now, this physical and spiritual abuse is happening in all major faiths around the world. Also, keep this in mind that spreading extremism or religious terrorism is completely different than preaching.
Whatever cruelty by the militant fighters is dramatized in the film, without a doubt, half of the madness is accurate. There is no denying about that. But another factor that cannot be denied is that “The Kerala Story” was heavily promoted by the ruling party of India, Bharatiya Janata Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi quoted the film during the Karnataka Assembly Election of 2023. Recently, BJP welcomed the film’s screening by the Idukki diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church for catechism students. And this is not the first time that BJP have raised their voice in favor of such films with similar contents. Remember ‘The Kashmir Files’?
CINEMATIC DISASTER
Another failure is the joke of an execution. Director Sudipto Sen and producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah were neither smart about story-telling nor gave a sensible continuity. Engrossed with ordinary dialogues, irritating background score, and ridiculous sense of brainwashing, the film looked completely amateur and first-day first-show debacle.
‘The Kerala Story’ is a propaganda film due to the fact that it was more about the Islamic extremism and the supreme invasion of Islamic terrorism blended with the hows and whys of the religion’s punishments and tortures than growing the unfortunate stories of those girls. The only thing that was good about the film was the performance of Adah Sharma who played the leading character Shalini. The changing of mood, facial expressions, shocks, beliefs, surprises, suffering, tension, the whole body language was there.
CLOSING REMARKS
‘The Kerala Story’ is for those who have fire in their hearts for Muslims and Islam. The film is for those who want to read a conspiracy theory against the religion and beliefs. The film is for the violent protesters who are interested in damaging properties of the Muslims and make them suffer for a few notes of money. The film is for those whose favorite life moment is watching a man on the street burning the Holy Book or looking at the cartoons of some French newspaper.
RATING 1/10
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 