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What makes for a good film? The story? The cast? Big budget? Huge production? Extravagant set designs? Heavy VFX? The answer probably is, we don’t know yet. Some movies with millions of dollars of investment don’t last a weekend in theaters and some with a fraction of their budgets become cult classics. Released recently on Netflix, “The Boy” joins the line of low-budget films that have the potential to be cult classics.

Not to be confused with the 2016 horror movie of the same name, The Boy is an American thriller based on a short film by Craig Macneill and Clay McLeod Chapman, the genesis of which lies in Chapman’s novel called “Miss Corpus”.

The Boy is about nine-year-old Ted (Jared Breeze), who lives with his father John (David Morse), a motel-keeper at some obscure highway in Colorado. The rundown motel is their family business and it is the two of them living in the seemingly deserted highway that sees little traffic. Ted’s mother has long left them and is in Florida and he still harbors the desire to go see her someday. His father John has taken the separation heavily, almost turning into an alcoholic.

With no business as such in the estate, no friends to play with, no family to turn to and an only parent who completely neglects him, young Ted turns to keeping himself entertained by roaming around the area and collecting roadkill. His father pays him for whatever dead animals he collects. As life gets excruciatingly boring for Ted and he has to find new ways of entertaining himself, Ted’s morbid hobby of collecting dead animals turns to hunting them, first out of curiosity and then out of pleasure.

On a fateful night, Ted’s attempt to kill a deer by making it stand on the highway while vehicles speed by causes an accident. The accident brings the mysterious William Colby (Rainn Wilson) to the father and son’s life. Colby decides to stay at the motel to recuperate from the accident but the local sheriff’s office is suspicious about him. Nonetheless, he stays and forms a good friendship with Ted. But not for long.

One can’t probably write about The Boy without giving away a major spoiler, but that’s not the point of the film. Yes, the little boy Ted in The Boy turns into a serial killer. There’s nothing suspenseful about that and the makers don’t intend to hide the fact. It is the process through which he transitions that matters more.

Ted is living a life of neglect. His father has abandoned his duties towards him. He does not go to school. He has no other adults taking care of him. He does not have same-age children to play with. So Ted’s absolute boredom and freedom gives space to unchecked wantonness, which then gets a dangerous edge. The quote “as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport” from Shakespeare’s “King Lear” becomes a description of his life. He starts killing out of boredom, for pleasure.

Most serial-killer movies either glorify the killer or demonize them. The Boy does neither. It just lets the audience get a glimpse of Ted’s life and how he metamorphosizes from an innocent young boy to a ruthless killer, all within his nine years on the planet.

The storytelling is slow and gradual. It takes time to develop Ted’s character. Child actor Breeze has done a commendable job as the troubled Ted, driving the film alone, of course supported adequately by his adult co-actors. The low-budget film banks entirely on its actors and storytelling and successfully so.

Who should watch it?

A potential ‘cult classic’ also means this film might have only a niche audience who will actually enjoy it. The onus lies on you to decide its fate. The film does have an excellent background score and its cinematography captures the vulnerability of lonliness with haunting resemblance to real life. So I still recommend The Boy to anyone who enjoys crime/thriller movies.

Rating: 3.5 stars
Actors: Jared Breeze, Rainn Wilson, David Morse
Director: Craig Macneill
Genre: Crime, thriller
Run time: 1hr 45mins

Books on books are my favorite kind of books. There is something immensely comforting in reading about someone who finds her way through books. It reinforces my belief that no matter what there is bound to be a book to help us make sense of things.

Christine Féret-Fleury has written over 80 of them. In 1996, she wrote her debut children’s book. ‘The Girl Who Reads on the Metro’ is her first adult novel to be translated into English.

The book caught my eye obviously because of the title but also because of the cover with Parisian houses. It just felt like a good read. It looked soothing—which is something we all need a little of right now. But now that I’ve read it, I’m kind of on the fence about it. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would but I don’t want to say anything bad about it either. It was a short, cute story but it had some major hiccups.

It’s about a character who loves to read, and who works with books. There are mentions of many books I love. But the story isn’t convincing. It’s about a girl named Juliette who lives in Paris. She hates her job as a realtor but she loves commuting on the metro where she gets to read and see what her fellow commuters are reading.

One day, she decides to get off at a different station than her regular one. She meets Soliman, the owner of an enchanting bookstore who believes books have the power to change lives. He gives Juliette a job as a passeur—someone who match-makes people with second-hand books. Juliette quits her job and then goes around giving the books Soliman assigns her to those who she thinks need them the most. Soliman, on the other hand, keeps a meticulous record of where the books end up.

It's an interesting premise. The problem is it’s not well worked on and things are a bit vague. You see all these fascinating things happening but you don’t really understand the why and the how. It’s also difficult to get attached to the characters, mostly because they feel a little underdeveloped. The connections between the characters also feel a bit forced. The writing too isn’t great but that might not necessarily be the author’s fault. Many things, I feel, might have been lost in translation.

The good thing about The Girl Who Reads on the Metro is that it’s a short book. You can easily finish it in a single afternoon. And it’s fun to hear someone talking about and dealing with books—holding them, smelling them. The idea that you could get so immersed in books that you completely forget the real world is intriguing. It’s something I’ve been contemplating ever since I finished the book.

Fiction
Christine Féret-Fleury
Originally published in France as ‘La fille qui lisait dans le métro’
Translated into English by Ros Schwartz
Published: 2019
Publisher: Pan Books
Pages: 199, Paperback

Some books just make me angry. In the past, that sentiment had mostly been reserved for Paolo Coelho’s books, which I think are preachy and have nothing to offer except obvious moral lessons. I never thought I would be saying it for Sophie Kinsella, bestselling author of the ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ series that has also been made into a fun movie starring Isla Fisher as Rebecca Bloomwood, a financial journalist who is forever running into debt because of her compulsive shopping habits. I have read most books in the series—they are fun and cheer you up.

I also enjoyed Kinsella’s stand-alone novel ‘The Undomestic Goddess’, a hilarious story of a high-powered corporate lawyer, Samantha Sweeting, who is mistaken for a job applicant for a housekeeper’s position at this big, beautiful house she stops to ask for directions after boarding a random train. She gets the job but she doesn’t even know how to make eggs or turn on the oven. There was a time when I talked about it every time someone asked me for book recs and even gifted it to friends.

Kinsella wrote light, fluffy books but she left you charmed. I wish she had stuck to writing witty books like these and not tried to tackle serious subjects, which is what she has done in ‘Finding Audrey’.

Here, Kinsella strives to tell the story of a teenager struggling with a mental health condition. We don’t know what happened to Audrey, except vague hints that suggest she was a victim of bullying. What we do know is that she doesn’t go to school anymore and wears dark sunglasses even when indoors. Strangers make her freak out, and she can neither touch nor talk to anyone besides her parents and her brothers, Frank and Felix. Then she meets Frank’s friend Linus who manages to take her to Starbucks and a few other places and talk to strangers in the guise of challenges.

It’s a lame story that undermines what it’s like living with a mental condition. You never know what’s wrong with Audrey and why she is the way she is. Worse, you don’t empathize with her as she seems like a selfish teenager and not someone who has had a lot to deal with at a young age. 

The book’s first 100 pages is just Audrey’s mother going crazy. She is convinced Frank is addicted to video games and tries to get him to read a book or watch a Dickensian movie. The characterization is so poor that she doesn’t even come across as a concerned mother, more like a controlling lunatic. Audrey, who is supposed to be the titular character, just smirks and hides. 

Sophie Kinsella, Author

It’s frustrating because the story goes around in circles and nothing really happens till Audrey makes up her mind to get better, in a moment of epiphany of sorts. As if it’s ever that easy. Kinsella probably had a vague story idea and felt she had to include the issue of mental health because it’s an important conversation. But she didn’t bother to do any research and learn just how debilitating mental illnesses can be. The result is an unconvincing, sloppy, and insensitive story.

Young Adult Fiction
Finding Audrey
Sophie Kinsella
Published: 2015
Publisher: Corgi Books
Language: English
Pages: 279, Paperback

Despite an eventful week, in which we relaunched the print edition of The Annapurna Express, I finally succeeded in committing myself to a series that had been on my watchlist for almost a month now. Co-produced by BBC One and Netflix, “The Serpent” has been a trending topic of discussion for film lovers online and I couldn’t put it off any longer.

The eight-part crime drama serial has a strong connection with Nepal and features the life and crimes of serial-killer Charles Sobhraj, also dubbed the ‘bikini killer’ and ‘the serpent’ based on the nature of his crimes and his cunningness. Told in different timelines using flashbacks to switch between the past and the present, The Serpent chronicles Sobhraj’s criminal activities from the early 70s till his arrest in Nepal in 2003, where he is still imprisoned, serving two life sentences for the murders he committed back in 1975.

The plot of the series is already known to the world with plenty of online resources available on Shobhraj’s life. It is the execution of these available timelines, with some creative liberties of course, that makes The Serpent deservedly get so much attention.

Algerian-French actor Tahar Rahim plays Shobraj, the French serial killer of Vietnamese-Indian origin, embodying his beguiling personality with much conviction. Compared to Randeep Hooda’s Sobhraj in “Mein Aur Charles” (2015)—which I thought would remain the best on-screen portrayal of the mysterious serial-killer—Rahim’s personification is what apples are to oranges. While Hooda’s Shobhraj had the style and suave befitting a Bollywood production, Rahim’s is more raw, gritty and tenacious. With the character of Charles Sobhraj itself covered in a number of multi-ethnic, multi-lingual layers, Rahim does an excellent job of personifying the bundle of complexities called Shobhraj.

In the supporting roles, Jenna Coleman plays Marie-Andrée Leclerc, Sobhraj’s Québécois girlfriend who assists him in smuggling, robbing, and unknowingly in murder. In this adaptation, however, Coleman’s Leclerc is just one of the lost souls who Sobhraj captivates and uses to commit his heinous crimes. Amesh Edireweera as Ajay Chowdhury—Sobhraj’s partner-in-crime—has the simple task of showcasing unrelenting evil and violence on screen. While Sobhraj seems to have at least some method to his madness, Chowdhury is utterly evil and actor Edireweera portrays the role convincingly. Billy Howle as Herman Knippenberg—a Dutch diplomat in Bangkok whose investigations lead to Sobhraj’s capture and incrimination—is also one of the strong onscreen presences that make the series enticing.

Attention to detail is another strength of The Serpent. The makers have put in a lot of effort into research and execution as they recreate the 70s hippie era in countries like India, Pakistan, Thailand and Nepal. Jhochhen (Freak Street) featured in some parts of the series is extremely convincing, as if it was actually shot back in the 70s itself. The attention to detail is so intricate that the makers recreate the iconic Snowman Café of Jhochhen—a hip joint back in the 70s—which still exists.

Told in so different timelines and travelling to-and-fro across many countries, The Serpent manages not to break the story’s continuity. The series retains a healthy pace throughout and every episode is enjoyable. The only complaint with the producers, who have otherwise worked so hard: the use of Indian actors for Nepali characters, and recognized faces at that. The Nepali film industry, although nowhere as big as Bollywood, definitely has actors who could have fit the supporting roles. Honestly, it feels wrong to see Indian actors take up Nepali roles when such faux pas could easily have been avoided.

Who should watch it?

This review is for those who have not watched The Serpent yet. I know quite a few who are apprehensive about starting a series lest it disappoints and wastes their time. This one, I would assure, is worth every minute spent on Netflix. If you like crime thrillers or dramas based on real-life people, this one is for you.

Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Crime, drama
Actors: Tahar Rahim, Jenna Coleman
Directors: Tom Shankland, Hans Herbots
Run time: 7hrs approx.