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I was actually planning on reviewing the Argentine crime-thriller “Recurrence” this week, the third installment in the “Pipa” trilogy following “Perdida” and “Intuition”—and I managed to watch all three this weekend. But Netflix did me dirty this time. It released a string of movies and series I had previously watched trailers of and anticipated. So I was forced to stay indoors the whole weekend and glare at my TV screen, in sheer joy.

So the “Pipa” trilogy gets an aggregate rating of four stars and falls under the must-watch category. Also on the must watch list is the Korean action-thriller “Carter.” It may not be an amazing movie but the visuals are mind-boggling. With mediocre VFX, the cinematography and editing in the film will sometimes make you rewind a scene and ask yourself “How did they do THAT?”

Now coming back to my senses from all the awesomeness currently available on Netflix, I review the Alia Bhatt-starrer “Darlings,” because it caters to a wider audience and I have started to love Bhatt as an actor based on her recent performances. 

Darlings is a black comedy co-written and directed by Jasmeet K. Reen and produced by Gauri Khan, Alia Bhatt and Gaurav Verma under the Red Chillies Entertainment and Eternal Sunshine Productions banners.

Actor and co-producer Bhatt plays Badru, a housewife married to Hamza (Vijay Varma). The couple appear happy and in love but their relationship is strained by Hamza’s drinking habit and abusive nature. Hamza is an alcoholic who routinely inflicts physical abuse on Badru—and makes her believe he hit her out of love. The gullible Badru buys it and forgives Hamza each time. 

Badru’s mother Shamshu (Shefali Shah), on the other hand, knows Hamza will never change and will keep abusing her daughter. She time and again begs Badru to leave her husband, to no avail. But then, one day, a disaster in Badru’s life caused by Hamza’s recklessness forever changes her. From an innocent housewife, Badru transforms into a vengeful woman, seeking to get back her self-respect.

Within this premise, the two female leads—Bhatt and Shah—paint the stage with glorious colors in Darlings. Bhatt is on a successful acting sprint with back-to-back critically acclaimed performances. I don’t understand why she gets unnecessary hate for belonging to a filmy family. That could have gotten her her first role but after that the actor has been impeccable in her works. In Darlings, she delivers another masterpiece of a performance as Badru. 

Shefali Shah also finally gets her worth in a film. The actor with immense potential and skills has mostly been reduced to playing supporting roles in her career, much of which were forgotten in the grand scheme of things. But in Darlings, she gets a strong character and ample screen time to display her skills. Together, the two ladies playing the mother-daughter duo take the story forward in a tight-kind screenplay that is predictable yet shocking at the same time. 

Vijay Verma, who shot to fame in Bollywood with the commercially successful “Gully Boy”, holds his grounds firmly against the ladies. Verma’s Hamza is a vindictive chauvinist, skilled at gaslighting. The actor manages to convince the audience how intrinsically flawed Hamza is and how much we can detest him.

The writing of Darlings gives it multi-layered depth while the direction captures the minute details of the characters’ life and surroundings. The cinematography and the background music need a special mention for not being outstanding. Yes, you heard that write. 

Anil Mehta’s cinematography and Prashant Pilla’s background score blend in with the characters and the settings. This creates a harmony between all things beautiful, despite the film’s darkness. 

Who should watch it?

Like I said, Darlings caters to a wide group of audiences—from thriller movie lovers to Alia Bhatt fans. It may not be one of the best Indian thrillers of all time but it is definitely top-notch. The way the film builds around the two central female characters is something unique and highly enjoyable too. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Run time: 2hrs 13 mins

Genre: Thriller/drama

Actors: Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, Vijay Verma

Director: Jasmeet K. Reen

‘My Brilliant Friend’ is the first book in Elena Ferrante’s four-volume series spanning almost 60 years. The first part is set in the 1950s in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. It follows two girls, Lila and Elena, through their school years and adolescence. The girls meet when they are each 10-year-old and develop a complex and conflicted friendship.

What I liked about My Brilliant Friend is that it’s an unsentimental portrait of friendship—with rivalry, jealousy, and the need to put oneself first. It chronicles the lives of young girls as they struggle to understand the world they live in and thus themselves. My Brilliant Friend, however, isn’t just a story of friendship. 

Ferrante also tells the story of a neighborhood and a city as it transforms over the years and how the events that occur shape the girl’s thought processes and lives. It’s a story about a community and how the lives of people are often interlinked. You could say it’s a coming-of-age novel of not just two girls but of a place as a whole. 

Themes like sexual jealousy, shame, rivalry are generally underexplored in fiction. My Brilliant Friend does a wonderful job of bringing these to the forefront and talking about things that we would rather not confront. It also feels like great character studies of different personalities. 

My only complaint with the narrative is that it’s a bit slow and events tend to drag on sometimes. If you can put up with that, and you definitely should, My Brilliant Friend, with its exploration of complicated issues like love, abandonment, the impact of violence can be just the contemplative read we all need in the extremely volatile time we are living in today.  

About the author

Elena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian novelist. She apparently refuses face to face interviews and has only given a few written ones. She makes no public appearances and once told her editor that she would not be promoting her books because, “she believed that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t.” 

Her works, originally published in Italian, have been translated into many languages. The four volumes known as the ‘Neapolitan quartet’ (‘My Brilliant Friend’, ‘The Story of a New Name’, ‘Those Who Leave’ and ‘Those Who Stay,’ and ‘The Story of the Lost Child’) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018. Time magazine in 2016 named Ferrante as one of the 100 most influential people.

Three stars

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35036409-my-brilliant-friend 

Fiction

My Brilliant Friend

Elena Ferrante

Published: Europa Editions

Publisher: 2012

Pages: 331, Paperback

The year is 1994. The camera zooms down on a residence in a quiet neighborhood somewhere in Kerala. Without cutting to another scene, the camera gets into street view and enters the house where a small but evidently happy family is discussing its plans for the day. A few verbal exchanges follow between the characters before the camera and, still without cutting, the shot moves to find the main protagonist—Nambi Narayanan.

The meticulousness of the long opening shot showing the close bonding between Nambi’s family and his humorous nature are representative of the entire film. Actor R. Madhavan, who plays the main character of Nambi, is the Swiss knife in the movie “Rocketry: The Nambi Effect” which he also writes, produces and directs. Rocketry is a biographical drama dedicated to Nambi Narayanan, a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization, who was wrongfully accused of espionage and made a villain by the media. The movie was filmed simultaneously in Hindi, Tamil and English languages with different actors in different versions. I watched the Tamil version on Amazon Prime.

 The day we are introduced to Nambi Narayanan and his family is the darkest day of their lives. Nambi and the Narayanan family head out to their respective works, completely unaware of the trouble brewing around them, only to find that the family’s name has been dragged through the soil by the allegations against Nambi. They are scorned by their own relatives, shouted at by random passersby and even physically abused while Nambi is forcibly taken into custody like a criminal.

In custody, Nambi is given three-degree to make him confess to all the allegations against him. But the determined Nambi stays put despite the excruciating torture and humiliation. Nambi’s unrelenting passion for his work and his nation is the entire theme of the film which uses different timelines to tell his story.

The timeline of Rocketry spans from 1969 when Nambi is accepted as a graduate student in Princeton University to 2019, when he receives his Padma Bhushan.

We see Nambi transition from a young, carefree student with the ability to play around with words and make people instantly like him, turn into a battered and bruised man, wearied by the conspiracies against him. But he never tires and never loses hope. That is how Nambi is able to exonerate himself, and go on to develop the Vikas rocket engine and also help India with its first successful Mars mission.

Although Rocketry is a biographical film meant to tell the audience about the heroics of Nambi Narayanan, it does not turn him into a superhero. Nambi—highly talented, quick-witted and passionate—is as human as the rest of us. R. Madhavan excels in portraying the real life hero on screen with utmost conviction and honesty.

The film’s script throws around a lot of science and tech, which would probably make a lot of sense to astronomy geeks, but is not overwhelming for the normal audience as well. This is what I love about R. Madhavan’s filmmaking. He does not overdo anything as an actor or a director. In fact, this debut director has the maturity of someone seasoned at directing films for decades.

Rocketry’s runtime of 2 hrs 37mins feels deserving of Nambi’s story. The cast and crew sync with the Nambi’s story and each takes upon themselves the onus of telling it to the world. The film also features cameo appearances in an important role by Shahrukh Khan (Hindi and English) and Suriya (Tamil) which shows the support the medium-budget film got from the Indian film industries.

Who should watch it?

Even for those not very interested in science and history, Rocketry is a serious drama that can be enjoyed by anyone who loves a good film. Also as Amazon Prime is stingy with its new releases, Rocketry is probably the best new film there is to watch on the OTT platform right now.

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Biographical drama

Director: R. Madhavan

Actor: R. Madhavan, Suriya

Run time: 2hrs 37 mins

I always say I won’t read another love story when I’m done with one. Then when I’m swamped with work and need a light read, I’ll pick up yet another one. A love story doesn’t require me to think too much about the characters and be consumed by their problems. These are what I want to read when I don’t want to invest too much mental energy in a story. But the thing is, all love stories are the same. And halfway through these books, I’m exasperated and a little mad at myself. 

I have a few problems with romance novels. First, it instills a clichéd idea of romance: that it’s all about candlelit dinners, stargazing, and elaborate confessions of love. Second, it’s too trope heavy. Boy meets girl, they don’t like each other, but there’s a lot of sexual tension between the two that they both try to quash before eventually discovering they are perfect for each other. Throw in some mental hang-ups, misunderstandings or reservations on either side (that get sorted out in dramatic ways) and you pretty much have any love story ever written. I don’t like character portrayals in romance novels either. I find them sexist. Love stories are also predictable and cheesy. 

‘Book Lovers’ by Emily Henry is the third Henry book I’ve read, after ‘You and Me on Vacation’ and ‘Beach Read’. Both were immensely hyped on social media specially Bookstagram and BookTube. I enjoyed reading them. They were fun while they lasted. 

‘Book Lovers’ is about Nora and Charlie, who work in publishing. Nora is a literary agent and Charlie is an editor. Nora isn’t fond of Charlie, especially after he bluntly rejected a book by one of her favorite clients, Dusty. Then, Nora’s sister, Libby, plans a trip to Sunshine Falls and the two bump into each other at the small town where, surprise, romance ensues. 

I didn’t hate ‘Book Lovers’ but I was disappointed by it as it had nothing new to offer. It felt like a rehash of one of the many love stories I’ve read over the years. I also cringed in many places—when Libby refers to Nora as ‘sissy’ and when Nora says, ‘Tonight, can I just have you, Charlie?’ There are plenty of other such stupid dialogues and instances that made my eyes roll far back into my head. 

Nora is a strong woman. She’s raised her sister all on her own after their mother passed away. She’s gotten them out of debt and made a name for herself in publishing. There’s nothing she can’t do and nothing that she wouldn’t do for Libby. But, like the female protagonists of most love stories, her steely exterior is a façade for her loneliness. It takes a man, Charlie in this case, to make her tune into her feelings. The romance genre thrives on this trope. ‘Book Lovers’ had so much potential with its interesting setting but it ended up being another average romance novel.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58690308-book-lovers 

Three stars 

Fiction

Book Lovers

Emily Henry

Published: 2022

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Pages: 377, Paperback