Neeraj Shrivastav

Movie Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi Before watching any english movie, I go to wikipedia to know the story. This is my second Star Wars movie, the first one being, ‘The Force Awakens”, which I saw earlier last year 2016. I must say, the Star Wars franchise is a mess and afflicted with incoherent story telling. Also, about the current movie, as per wikipedia, it’s made with 200 Million budget and till now has a box office earnings of 850 Million approx. This shows, Star Wars series has an enormous and dedicated fan following who will go to watch the movie atleast once. And there will be million more curious idiots like me who will also have a “dekho” of this gibberish mumbo-jumbo. One knows when the franchise is out of ideas absolutely. It is, when some characters leave the spaceship and practice meditative mind-control atop a mountain, besides drink milk from a strange cattle and hunt fish like a congo africans. And then those idiotic philosophising. After each bout of wanton storyless firing into space, scenes settle down on some inane chats on why Jedi should end and be gone forever. Hopefully they should. Probably the franchaise is preparing the egghead followers that the series end is near. I’ll rate this movie as a blackhole out of five. Star Wars series needs a fresh look on story telling. Thankfully, Carrie Fisher died at the right time and was spared the agony.

As the Thappad (Slap) scene approaches, the story builds itself up perfectly for a fall out, relationship wise. First, there are lots of wifery to begin with. Starts with; not letting the morning wake up alarm ring even for a second lest it wakes the husband. The alarm is strictly for wife, for her to start her wifely stuffs. Collecting milk and newspapers from the doorsteps, chopping few leaves of lemongrass and grating ginger to make tea and finally see the husband off to his work while holding his wallet and tupperware of drink. Second, there is husband. But he doesn’t indulge in husbandry. He is probably some mid level corporate PPT pusher wanting to make it bigger than what he is now. He is pampered at home till his doorsteps and thereafter he alights his saloon car for office. His angst with the world begins at his doorsteps because his neighbour is a beautiful working women driving a large SUV. Nothing perturbs a promotionwallah more than to see others driving a bigger whatever. If he has a car, he now desires a car-a-lago. Third, there are the two families on each side. They are shown to be pretty sedate. They don’t seem to matter much in the actual scheme of things. They are the support staff, supporting their individual wards. At the eve of Thappad, husband is perturbed about some office politics undermining his promotion and is confronting his boss at a party in his house. When Thappad arrives, it wipes out point number one as enumerated above. Wife withdraws from wifery. Husband turns to husbandry. The manly kind. No remorse. Later the husband’s promotion is reinstated despite his boss and number of his colleagues saw the husband’s Thappad. No repercussions for egregious behaviour. It’s a man’s world. (If you want a promotion, throw a party at your house, and slap your wife!) Next, joins the vakils, lawyers. The director has toned down the rhetorics which lawyers in Indian movies are shown to unleash. This is refreshing. Both sides are civil to begin with and pretty civil to end with. Even threats are civil. No shouts and harangues. Just conversation. But why is the movie so interesting. Taapsee! She is in a pivotal role. She portrays and projects all the predicaments before and after Thappad. Credit also goes to the director who is able to get the right measure of effects in near low tone of the movie. It’s pretty fashionable these days to cut melodrama in Indian movies, but cutting melodrama and still able to convey the emotion needs good direction and good actors. The movie had great scope of melodrama, starting with husband worship, then Thappad, then vakil (lawyers), then two families, then Bachcha (pregnancy) yet the movie is restrained with equally restrained performances.

I searched the meaning of “Gulabo Sitabo.” The search fetched a site of “World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts” where it says that “Gulabo Sitabo” is a “traditional glove puppet theatre from Uttar Pradesh in north India. These puppets made of papier-mâché, dressed in colourful, shiny clothes and trinkets, are named after the two heroines who are represented in the show: Sitabo, the worn out, overworked spouse; and Gulabo, the scintillating mistress of the same man. If the above is what is meant, the movie never said it. Few people are going to do this hard work before they see a movie. I’m sure they will be left hunting for these two characters throughout the show as no characters in the movie are named Gulabo and Sitabo. If a metaphor was intended, it missed its mark. Amitabh Bachchan’s character is called Mirza Sheikh and it was hard to tell what he is doing and what his motivations are. One thing became evidently clear by the end of the story that Mirza Sheikh has no sense of value or he makes no attempt to derive value out of whatever he possesses. He is just for small time sake. But why is he doing it? Greed for what? He sells a grand chandelier, costing probably Rs. 20,000 plus, for Rs 1000 in a jiffy just for the money. He sits down like a beggar and collects money while young girls dance to a puppet show. He steals light bulbs and bicycle ringers from his tenants and sells them for small change. The character is doing or showing a lot but nothing is been told. In the end, whatever needed to be shown is told via a letter. The movie is a thinking man’s nightmare. I expected Shoojit Sirkar’s “Piku” like movie. That movie too is written by Juhi Chaturvedi. I expected at least a good structure albeit some design fault. In the wikipedia, it’s revealed by film director Shoojit Sirkar….”As soon as I read the script, I shared it with Mr Bachchan and Ayushmann at the same time. I thought it would take some time to develop and take it forward, but everyone was so enthusiastic to work on this script, they figured out their dates and here we are…” Well, here we are with a half baked story and screenplay. If Shoojit and Juhi intended to develop it why not go on with it. Did you expect Bachchan and Khurrana to do that for you? The movie is held on by performances. Amitabh Bachchan as Mirza Sheikh is simply amazing. I have grown up seeing Bachchan as romantic action hero through 1970’s and 1980’s and now I see him as a wizened old man. I mean, this man will go down as the most prolific and versatile actor of all times. Against him is Ayushmann Khurrana as Baankey Rastogi. He is a good competent actor but after seeing him through Dum Laga ke.., Bala, etc., etc., his performance is predictable and repetitive. Nevertheless he held it against Bachchan but it’s not like Bachchan vs Rajesh Khanna a la Anand. One find of this movie is Srishti Shrivastava as Guddo. Right from the first scene onwards she exudes the quality of an accomplished actress. In the story there were several occasions and potential to develop this character. I felt she might usher a turning point and will be key at denouement and resolution. Alas, that was no to be. But good luck to you.