Suma Narayan

Good morning. Movie Review: Athiran The film is a 2019 psychological thriller in Malayalam. Directed by Vivek, it is scripted by P. F. Mathews from a story by Vivek. The film stars Fahadh Faasil, Sai Pallavi and Atul Agnihotri. All stories that are set in mental asylums are, necessarily dark and naturally spooky. What makes this film darker and more spooky is that the viewer doesn't realise, until almost the end, who is 'normal', and who isn't. Shot extensively in Ooty, in a matter of 55 days, the film alternates between scenes of exquisite natural beauty, with harrowing scenes of sheer terror. Dr Nair, a psychiatrist, visits a mental asylum located in a very remote location in Kerala. He meets the patients who are never kept under lock and key, and one patient kept completely hidden away from public eye, who, Dr Benjamin Diaz claims to be his daughter. How Dr Nair, who has been sent to inspect and report on the mental facility, discovers, draws out and integrates the isolated patient with the others, forms a major part of the story. The intense Dr Nair, the enigmatic Dr Diaz, his protective secretary and friend Renuka and the autistic Nithya and their thoughts and actions keep you watching the film with bated breath, almost till the end. ...and then another Dr Nair turns up: and we have to go back and watch the whole film again. Extraordinarily nuanced acting by Sai Pallavi is enhanced by her skill in Kalari Payattu, the Kerala martial art form. Fahad Faasil's eyes tell a million tales and Atul Agnihotri, one of my favourite actors, who I have seen in a lot of Malayalam movies recently is at his classic best and suits the role to a T. The background score is neither intrusive, nor jarring. The photography is surreal and the locales make you want to catch the next flight and visit Ooty immediately. Or take a train...the journey is as attractive as the destination. There are a lot of comparisons that reviewers have made, to other movies, with similar themes and storylines. I leave you to decide the difference, or similarity of this movie, to those others. I don't know who is listening, but I would love to see a sequel to the film. Suma Narayan

Movie Review: A Walk Among the Tombstones A Walk Among the Tombstones is a film released on September 19, 2014, written and directed by Scott Frank, based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Lawrence Block. It stars Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, David Harbour, Brian Bradley, and Boyd Holbrook. The movie takes off with the protagonist, Detective Matthew “Matt” Scudder in a car, with a partner, who expresses his dissatisfaction with Matthew as a reliable back-up. Later, the detective goes into a bar; while he is there, there, two armed men come in and kill the bartender. Pursuing them, the detective kills all three people, including their getaway driver. Why, as a result of this shootout, Matthew retires from active service is what we come to know later in the movie. Much, much later. Matthew becomes an active member of an Alcoholics Anonymous group. Eight years later, a drug addict approaches Matthew and asks him to help his brother, a drug trafiicker whose wife has been kidnapped. Though the husband had rustled up and delivered the ransom money, it was the wife’s tortured, brutalised, dis membered body which had been delivered to the husband. Trying to discover a lead or clue, Matthew frequents the library to discover similar crimes. He befriends a savvy, brutally frank, homeless teenager, TJ, in the library. Matthew speaks to people and comes across a groundsman in the graveyard, among the tombstones, close to where another dismembered body, packed in separate plastic bags was found floating in the pond. Alone and without help, Matthew shoulders on, digging, digging, digging. And the killers are at large, hunting for their next prey. The scene cuts to the house of the killers from time to time, panning to their terrifying instruments of torture, with sharp, barbaric knives and gouges to cut up bits of living flesh while the victim screamed in agony. Another 14-year old girl is kidnapped; she is the daughter of another trafficker, and suddenly, Mattthew is in the centre of the action… No, I am not going to be a spoiler here, or reveal the twists and turns of the plot. There are so many unexpected events happening that it is difficult to predict what will happen next. Watch the movie for Liam Neeson’s understated histrionics: how he makes do with one raised eyebrow to convey an entire page of script. He is shown to be human and vulnerable, morose and non-committal: TJ, the homeless teenager is a wonderful foil to his character. Bright, cynical, worldly wise, the would-be detective sails through the movie, putting down his angst and his talent down on pieces of paper, in the form of animation figures. The climax, where there is a faceoff between the suave, slick killers and the bumbling team consisting of the father of the kidnapped girl, the husband of the murdered woman, the drug addict and Liam Neeson, among the tombstones in the same graveyard, is masterly. The voice over is of a woman reciting the 12 steps of recovery of a confirmed alcoholic: 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. ...etc. As these steps are recited in the voice-over, there is a parallel piece of action happening: and I found this analogy particularly moving. The haunting tracks of ‘Black Hole Sun’ featuring Nouela, that accompanies the rolling credits at the end, sounded like an extension of the neo noir genre that the movie is slotted into. The movie concludes with a resolution, a firm friendship and trust between two strangers: TJ and Matthew, and a vindication of the resilience of the human spirit despite all odds. Go, watch A Walk Among the Tombstones.

The Book Club, released by Paramount Pictures, in May 2018, is an unapologetically female centric film, directed by Bill Holderman, from a screenplay by Erin Simms and Holderman. The four women who star in it are all Academy award winners: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen. The stellar cast is enough to make this a lodestone for moviegoers. Four friends have formed a book club and meet once a month or so, to discuss a book that they have decided to review. The book club is 30 years old, and over the course of the years, the four friends have forged a bond that has been strengthened by in depth knowledge of each other’s lives and loves, taboos and fetishes. After a run of apparently boring books, one of them declares that ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ would be the next book to be read and discussed. There is opposition from the Federal Judge (Candice Bergen, Sharon) and the mother (Diane Keaton, Diane), but Jane Fonda (Vivian, self-made hotel magnate) pushes the book through. Then begins a period of revelation and introspection, in which these four fiercely independent women are forced to look at their own lives and the lies they tell themselves to survive in the way the world and society wants them to. From a natural fear of commitment, to the frequently voiced ‘I am too old for this’ line, the plot gently but inexorably leads the women to take another shot at living life on their own terms. The underlying theme is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to be happy. But here’s the thing: people, especially the current movie-watching public, have a problem with the idea that a woman who is old enough to be a mother or grandmother, can be both sexually attractive as well as attracted to the opposite sex. It makes them uncomfortable. In the small preview theatre that I was in, there was only one man who had ventured in. I looked at his face during the interval, and it looked slightly green. After the movie, he fairly bolted out of the theatre, leaving his women friends to follow at a more leisurely pace. I have a feeling that if a movie with the same plotline were made, substituting male characters/actors, instead of female ones, it would gross more than this one seems to have. The movie destroys a lot of conventional, convenient traditional patterns of behaviour laid down for women. It is both raunchy and racy sometimes, and yes, there are expletives peppering the dialogue. But it is also, frequently, laugh-aloud hilarious. There are a lot of gentle but provocative questions asked of the audience: and a very, very poignant look at the necessary loneliness that old age entails, when you feel that life has passed you by and you only become an encumbrance to younger family members, who feel they have a right to dictate the terms of your life in the interest of your ‘safety and security’ What resonates with me when I see this is the Mahesh Manjrekar movie ‘Astitva’, (2000) with Tabu in one of her most stellar performances to date. There is a scene in it where the husband, filled with righteous indignation at his wife’s infidelity, slaps his wife when she declares that women have a right to desire and be desired like men have. By conventional male standards, this amounts to blasphemy. Women have been burnt at the stake for less. I would recommend The Book Club to any and every thinking woman. I would also recommend it to any man who is capable of thinking for himself.

102 Not Out is a film directed by Umesh Shukla, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor in the lead roles. The film is based on the Gujarati play of the same name, written by Saumya Joshi. I am not fond of cricket, for several reasons: so the title was not appealing to me. I dreaded the thought of sitting through two hours of what might prove to be a piece of farce replete with cheap jokes and double entendres. But I went to watch the movie because the person who had invited me was a dear friend whose birthday fell on that particular day. But I needn’t have worried. Right from the word ‘go’, the movie which ran for exactly 102 minutes was sheer, un alloyed pleasure. The story is narrated by Dhiru (Jimit Trivedi), who works in an adjacent pharmacy. Amitabh Bachan, in the character of the 102-year old patriarch of the family is obsessed with surviving for 14 more years, in order to beat the record of the oldest person in the world, a Chinese man. In order to do that, he says, he needs an atmosphere free of negativity, and so he needs to stay away from negative people…like his 75 year old son, Babu, played by Rishi Kapoor. His solution? Send his son to an old age home, so that he, the father can live a positive life to the ripe old age of 116. Faced with his son’s natural consternation at this plan, he relents, and gives him a series of chores to do that would show that he has become more positive. Here’s why the movie is an essential must-watch for people of all ages: it has something in it for everyone. Every mission or chore that the father sets his son is a message to people of all ages. To begin with, don’t be so dependent on doctors and medicine that you forget common sense entirely. Try not to equate possessions with happiness. Don’t freak out if there is a slight change in your daily routine. It is all very well to be fond of your children, but don’t be blind to their selfishness or give in to their unreasonable demands. Jimit Trivedi’s un comprehending look, and sotto voce comments when he hears some of the strange things that the father wants the son to do, make you scream with laughter. He is a good foil to both the larger than life role played by Bachan and the irritable, sulking Kapoor. The movie tells a story and nothing is allowed to intrude on it. Everything is unobtrusive, the dialogues, the action, the direction, the script, the plot, all working seamlessly towards unfolding the story. Amitabh Bachan has, once again justified his reputation: he has rendered a sterling performance. Rishi Kapoor is very convincing as the uncomprehending, beleaguered son and Jimit Trivedi has put up the performance of a lifetime. Excellent, sensitive direction by Umesh Shukla is the icing on the cake. Don’t miss this movie. It could be one of the good things that have come your way this sweltering summer. Suma Narayan

A wonderfully moving and inspirational cinematic experience.A young and promising gymnast has set his sights on winning gold at the Olympics.Justifiably, perhaps, he becomes very conceited and cocksure. One early morning, unable to sleep, he goes for a run, and meets the proprietor of the local convenience and mechanic store, a character played by Nick Nolte. From then on, Dan's life changes completely, as he discovers his certainties and his convictions rapidly eroding. The movie re iterates the tenet that anything is possible to the person who lives in the moment, and doesn't let his past and future overtake his present. An ounce or two of magic, a smattering of philosophy and oodles of inspirational messages make this a movie that is definitely worth watching. That there are more than the usual number of attractive people in the movie doesn't do it any harm, either.

Yes. I would most certainly recommend it. Although many parts of it are predictable and extreme caricatures of social and economic strata, I loved the way that all the characters, including the teacher were shaken, and stirred, and realised that they had more in common than they had initially concluded. The best part of the movie was the piece that the earnest young student wrote for the teacher, which said that "You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... and an athlete... a basket case... a princess... and a criminal" It had shades of the 'Brick in the Wall' rant about teachers. I think those lines are eternally truthful.