Tag: Reviews

La La Land

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I get why they called it La La Land. I’ve been reading about this land since my teens… when Gore Vidal, Jackie Collins and Joan Collins were some of the various authors whose works I devoured. I have read Joyce Carol Oates, Huxley and Fitzgerald in my college years. I have been a fan of movies since I could walk. I have been raised in Mumbai, a city that has the similar prestige of fulfilling dreams of fame. I have seen Abhimaan, the theme of which was applicable to La La Land, but in a more rustic way… though the music of the former completely outshines the latter – in my opinion.

But then I could talk about the countless other musicals that I think overshadowed La La Land. Singing in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady! Or if you must remove ourselves from the times when musicals were fantastic then I shall mention Grease, Moulin Rouge, Mamma Mia and Chicago!

I agree that the dynamics here are slightly different – we want grittier stuff, we want a sad ending, we want (do we?) a series of fade ins and outs, we want more reality, we want more angst – but don’t we also want good dancing, good lyrics, good – er, singing? I must say, I expected more. I expected good songs, dammit. It did divert from other musicals when the predominant focus of the movie was just these two characters, the only other character I remember other than the main leads, is the hero’s sister. So that in itself sets the tone apart from almost all other musicals.

I will point out the good stuff. Emma Stone couldn’t sing – but man, that woman can act! She is dynamic and her face is fluid with emotion. She stole my breath away in quite a few scenes, all of them when she is rife with struggle. She needs an accolade, she did but then so did Ryan Gosling. That brings me to him: He played the piano damn well, in fact, he learned how to make love to the black and white keys in a few months, commendable indeed! But acting? His face is pretty and wooden. So then I keep looking to his eyes then for some glimpse of emotion, but not only is his face stone but his eyes are blank. They had to light up his eyes in the end to get some life in them… He is just dispassionate – and he got an award?

The title track: the lyrics are flat, but the melody is breathtaking. It sits with you. You look forward to hearing it even in the background score. The song that I like (lyrics and music – not the singing, mind) is Audition (The Fools Who Dream). The lyrics are beautiful, it has the quality of I Dreamed a Dream, and Anne Hathaway’s is not the best rendition, yet still so moving… ah well. Audition rests as my favoured song from the movie.

But I would really like to ask, why make it into a musical? If you have a sterling actress and a reasonable plot why transform the genre? She is an actress and he is a pianist. We see episodes of her screen tests (magnificent) and we see episodes of him playing the piano. So shouldn’t that have been enough to lay foundation to character and plot?

Maybe it is a musical because of the last few minutes of the movie, when the narrative spins into a Ginger Rogers – Fred Astaire take on how the movie could have been, and when it actually catapaults you into the space where the movie breathes into a musical personality. It’s cut short however. Maybe then they should have just forgotten about making it into a musical – if it is about music, then it should have worked with predominant jazz, that called to Mia in the first place. Make it about his music and not make it into a musical! But then it’s not just about his music – so frankly, let me push the buck and say making it a musical seems misogynistic.

I admit that life has its idiosyncrasies, how people drift, how love and careers seldom make good bedfellows, but all of this could have been done better. Hell, it has been done better. The movie actually makes a little more sense when I see it from a different angle, it’s never about these two characters and their love for each other, it is about these two characters and their love for their careers and how these two enable that to happen in the course of their few months together. The best scene in the movie (no! it wasn’t them dancing in the “stars”) was the argument that they have at the dinner table, when they both tell each other that their dreams are what makes them tick, and the fact that they shouldn’t be given up for love is left hanging like a guillotine.

So the movie makes us understand that the Real and the Romantic do not mix, which is the truth. In reality, we are all really lousy singers. Passion lasts for about a year. You have to go through heartbreak to be successful. Dreams can be found, if dancing among the stars is forsaken, and there you have the paradox of the movie. No dancing together in the city of figurative, twinkling stars but performing in the city of worldly, rich stars

Also, if you note, she has a boyfriend whom she leaves for Seb, after she essentially hears him play the first time – I mean, who doesn’t have a thing for a talented, tortured musician? Okay, that’s a whole different argument. But coming back to my point, she hears him play when she is married in the end, so chances are she may just go back to him later – hopefully, there isn’t a sequel then. And if there is, please don’t let it be a musical!

(And I still didn’t understand why they didn’t get better lyricists for the movie?)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia2 Comments

I’d give it 7/10

Let me begin with a wish: I wish that Alfonso Cuarón had directed this movie – and he would be also allowed to direct all the rest that are to follow. I don’t really like David Yates’ direction. The movie moves well enough, but there are some cuts and snap tos that I can’t seem to digest as well-directed at all. That being said, the movie belongs to Eddie Redmayne. He has pulled off the role of Newton Scamander so well that the errors of direction seem alright.

*Spoilers ahead – you be warned*

The movie basically deals with Scamander coming in to America to release a thunderbird into the wilds of Arizona. The creature, Frank, as Newt has named him, is absolutely beautiful. I cannot help but admire all those who happen to be sorted in Thunderbird at Ilvermorny. Being one of the house members of Puckwudgie just seems like I was sorted in Slytherin, much like Albus Potter is… But then, I’ll just have to wait and see what being a Puckwudgie would be like – but I digress.

There are various new elements presented in the story. Since it happens on the continent of America I cannot help but see Hillary Clinton as Seraphina Picquery and Percival Graves as Trump. But then again that’s just me: seeing metaphors where none exist.

Eddie Redmayne! Thankfully, he was rejected to play Tom Riddle way back in 2002, when he auditioned for the part in the Chamber of Secrets. Or else, casting him here would have been impossible. This man takes acting to a whole different level. He plays the part of Newt like he was born a wizard, attended Hogwarts, was sorted into Hufflepuff, was expelled from the school, and became a Magizoologist. His reticence reaches his eyes all the time. There is a wariness and diffidence that most animal lovers have when dealing with human beings, the attitude which is so deeply imbibed within them which makes them distrust humans, seeing them as beings that debase the environment and massacre other organisms they deem inferior. Eddie imbues all of this within Newt Scamander, with a faultless charm. There couldn’t have been a better choice to play this. He is to Newt what Martin Freeman was to Bilbo.

Porpentina Goldstein is very well-portrayed by Katherine Waterston. An independent woman who stands up for the downtrodden by breaking rules and therefore loses status at her job which is all about upholding the rules. The magical community doesn’t seem to be very lenient when it comes to the law – it literally (and ironically) is Draconian. I draw parallels again: to me, Tina is like Hermione and Newt is like Harry. Porpentina’s sister, Queenie, is much like Luna Lovegood, and Jacob Kowalski is much like Ron. So at least in this historical spin-off, Harry and Hermione get together. *wink*

Ezra Miller stands out. Maybe because he identifies as queer in real life, he could play this role so vividly. Someone trying to repress who he really is and that leads to his becoming an Obscurial, eventually leading to his detriment. His scenes stand out, parallel to the repressed power of acting shown by the very gifted Samantha Morton.

The MACUSA is created beautifully, one thing is for certain: the visual effects team has done a phenomenal job! Each creature has been lovingly crafted. The sheer imaginative genius of J. K. Rowling has to be hailed once again, for thinking up of these creatures in the first place. I still remember reading both “Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them” and “Quidditch Through the Ages” so many years ago, and chuckling at her sharp wit and mammoth ingenuity. Now as I see the thunderbird come to life with its six wings, and the beauty of the Occamy slither away after a cockroach, I am awestruck all over again.

Each beast – and there are quite a few in the movie – have been devotedly crafted. To match the benevolence and adoration shown to them by Scamander, the visual effects team have done them complete justice. The erumpent is wonderfully funny, the nundu is majestic, the graphorn is grandiose, and the niffler is as immensely lovable as the bowtruckle is endearing. The Swooping Evil is completely contrary to its name. It literally saves the heroine, ensnares the villain and saves the entire magical community from being exposed to the No-Maj world. The movie is about beasts and where to find them, indeed!

Which brings me to a different sort of beast: Gillert Grindelwald. All of us who have read the Harry Potter books from front to back, several times, over the years, know who he is. When I read his relationship with Dumbledore, I had cocked my eyebrow on reading about it at several places. Hello, this seems like romantic love, I thought to myself – and sure enough, Rowling mentioned after it all was written and done with, that Dumbledore, my hero, was gay. So Gillert became someone he was in love with – or at least, I believe so. Colin Farrell is good – but there literally is applause in the theater when Johnny Depp is revealed as the true Gillert.

But it is in the portrayal of this character, that I find that the film doesn’t add up. How has he taken the identity of Percival Graves? Polyjuice? Is Graves dead? Does Grindelwald already have the elder wand when he duels with Porpentina and then Newt? (The exact date when he gets the Elder Wand could be between 1899-1945, so he may not have it in his possession at the time of these duels.) He is 43 years old when the film is set, at the beginning of, if not already at, the height of his power. So why does he require an Obscurus? How will that help him find the Deathly Hallows? I am sure all of this will eventually be explained. But for that we must wait for another two years. And then another two more and then – oh well, you get the drift.

Yes, I would totally recommend the film. It’s sluggish in the beginning, and apart from the leads, the rest of the cast seems incompetent in their roles. I would commend it for brilliant visual effects – the beasts are breathtaking, and now you know exactly where to find them.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I have to write this down before the feeling passes as feelings are wont to do. I just finished seeing Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. I had lost complete faith in Karan Johar’s writing since Bombay Talkies and in his direction since Student of the Year. But this film resurrected quite a bit of the appeal he held for me in the late 90’s.

The story connected with me on different levels. I have a best friend who is of the opposite gender. I have had heartbreaks. I have known strong, liberal women (thank the stars, for where would I be without them?) Someone I love has been akin to a disease that is life-threatening. I have shaved my head off too, for someone I love had shaved off hers – and that love wasn’t sexual at all.

The tagline on IMDb states that it is a tale of unrequited love. That’s just one small facet of this movie that touches the friendship between two individuals, feminism, sexual liberation, the woman’s prerogative to say no, infidelity (on more than one level) and, most of all, a different kind of love – which frankly, I never expected a commercial, Bollywood movie to showcase centre stage.

Ranbir Kapoor (Ayan) is always phenomenal. I have also maintained that he feels like the brother I never had – in short, nothing very sexual about him (personally speaking that is, I am sure there are people who do think otherwise). And right from the start Anushka Sharma (Alizeh) comments on this, when – shocker! – he can’t kiss well and she doesn’t find him sexually engaging. She does try, initially. So the relationship builds into a friendship, and as a friend pointed out, it has a wonderful intricacy. The sari-clad scenes in the mountains were wonderfully funny.

Anushka is Anushka. As Ash is Ash. They have their roles and they move through the movie fluidly, not jarringly. I like the uninhibitedness shown by Ash in the role of Sabah. She is mature. She knows what she wants, and also what she doesn’t want. Or rather, what she can handle and what she cannot. One of the reasons for her letting go of her marriage. The role is nuanced and has layers of strength and dignity, quite appealing in this case. The dialogues of the movie can be trite at places and lyrical in some others, and though her Urdu seems stilted, I loved some of the interchanges, Ash’s character has. Especially with her ex-husband. The intensity of that scene is almost overpowering. I love the way the maturity of relationships evolves, even those that were dealt with in the past.

Fawad Khan’s role – was it chopped? You could blink and miss him. Pity, he is an excellent actor. Just as good as Ranbir. And Imran Abbas was there too! But I must say I loved Lisa Haydon as Lisa, the gold-digger.

I liked the movie very much. Few movies make me go quiet in the end. This one did. I was absorbing what I had just seen. I understood why Alizeh couldn’t love Ayan the way Ayan wanted her to. I understood her clinging onto a latent fear that friendship is destroyed when sex comes into the picture, I also understood that it could be the fear that because she didn’t sexually appreciate Ayan, she could lose the man she had come to love. When people say their spouse is their best friend – I can never understand that. My best friend is my best friend. My lover is my lover. The twain can never be the same. For me. So I get what Alizeh is on about. I mean, totally.

On the other hand, there is Saba who didn’t want to fall in love with Ayan, and he welcomed the fact and so went into a sexual relationship with her. She herself had realized what happened when people fell in love, as she surely was with her ex-husband, and so she chose to avoid it, despite the fact that it helped her write. Ironically, what happens is that she does fall for him and in doing so realizes it will always be unrequited and does to Ayan what he never has the courage to do with Alizeh.

It’s so complicated to explain, so it’s kudos to the writer, director and the actors who tried to bring this out onto a screen, before people who wouldn’t want to see the breaking of a set median, where there is no middle-ground, no structure, just a personal abstraction. It is love. It’s bound to be abstract, right? So it is a love story, just not like the ones we are used to.