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Once upon a time, my favor­ite fairytale was Cinderella. A rags to riches story with a fairy godmother and a handsome prince thrown in the mix. It was hopeful, happy, and magical.Or so I thought.

Years later, I realized how prob­lematic the story is or all fairytales are. Cinderella, Snow White, Rapun­zel, Sleeping Beauty—they are all the same: There is a perfect girl—with flawless skin and glossy hair—and she has many problems in life. She is unwanted and often mistreated, and she always pines for a prince. Then comes a dashing ‘Prince Charming’ who puts an end to her misery by fighting against the ‘villains’ and becomes her ‘hero’.

The girls never become their own heroes.

These stories are still what most of us are reading to and telling our children because they are popular. And by doing so we are covertly perpetuating the idea that girls are the weaker sex and thus fueling misogyny.

Stories can be powerful resources for confidence building and our fairytales—despite its goodness-al­ways-prevails message—do nothing in that regard.

I feel it’s time to move away from Brothers Grimm and Hans Chris­tian Andersen so that our daughters don’t grow up with a warped idea of how we are defined by our gen­der. It helps that there are so many new and exciting takes on classic fairytales now. ‘Fierce Fairytales’ by Nikita Gill is one of my favorites. Here, the once helpless heroines are empowered and don’t sit around waiting and wishing for a prince. The poems and stories also deal with issues of love, feminism, abuse, and mental illness.

But retellings aside, there is a book that we should all be reading to our children. ‘Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls’ by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo is an illustrat­ed collection with stories of 100 inspirational females. Written in a fairytale format with the classic opening line ‘Once upon a time’, these are real stories of phenome­nal woman like Marie Curie, Coco Chanel, Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai, and Serena Williams, among many others.

Growing up, I felt there was a severe lack of female role models to look up to—in the worlds of sci­ence, politics, history, art, sports, etc. But it wasn’t because there weren’t remarkable women out there but because their stories nev­er came to the forefront, always being overshadowed by the tri­umphs of men. Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls can be an empow­ering read for all girls (and wom­en too!) as the stories convey an important message: Though dam­sels might sometimes be in distress, they are capable of finding their own way out.

From his entry into the Bollywood film industry in 1993, Saif Ali Khan has played a wide variety of roles. In fact, he is one of the few mainstream Bollywood actors who take huge in playing non-conformist characters. But coming straight from the success of “Tanhaji” which was preceded by the semi-flop “Lal Kaptaan,” Saif as an actor and a producer in “Jawaani Jaaneman” goes back to doing what he does best—playing the ladies’ man, the cool dude, the Casanova, the ‘man-child’ with commitment issues.

Be it his first commercial success “Yeh Dillagi” (1994) with Akshay Kumar through which he Oley Oleyed into limelight or the box-office successes “Hum Tum” (2004) and “Salaam Namaste” (2005), Saif has excelled in playing the urban alpha male with suave. And in this latest release, he reprises his character into making this light-hearted, PG comedy “Jawaani Jaaneman.”

Directed by Nitin Kakkar, Saif stars as Jaswinder “Jazz” Singh, a London-based real estate broker who lives a happy bachelor life. Jazz is this upper-middle class, 40-something dude who doesn’t have to put in a lot of effort at work, has the self-proclaimed ‘swag’, is a serial womanizer, parties almost every night and is terrified of commitments or any changes in his life. Seemingly, he is oblivious to his growing age too. 

But the real story starts when he ‘picks up’ a 21-year-old “Tia” (Aliya Furniturewala) from the bar with all the wrong intent and she in turn surprises him by revealing that he might have 33.33 percent chance of being her dad. It won’t be a spoiler to let the audience know that Jazz eventually turns out to be Tia’s father, and Tia is pregnant with her ex-boyfriend. The film’s intent is not to keep secrets from the audience but reveal conflicting situations in the characters’ lives after these shocks. 

With witty writing and equally fitting performances, JJ is an entertaining comedy that explores different realms of life such as the struggles of a single mother, the stress of fatherhood, the impact of dysfunctional families on children, and how lives change with the addition of a family member. The story is set in London to conveniently place it away from the orthodox Indian society. Had the setting been India, the story would perhaps have evolved differently, without much scope for comedy, we dare say. 

As mentioned earlier, Saif is at completely home in the movie. Saif’s Jazz comes across as natural as his “Karan Kapoor” in Hum Tum, which also won him multiple awards including the National Film Award, and “Nikhil Arora” in Salaam Namaste. He does show a few signs of ageing, but with that also comes the maturity through which he handles emotional scenes. 

Debutant Aliya also gets an impactful character and is probably the most successful newcomer in her age group. A string of star kids have entered Bollywood in 2019/2020 and so far only Aliya (daughter of actress Pooja Bedi and granddaughter to movie veteran Kabir Bedi), has been able to give a promising performance. The actress as the young Tia—who is out on a journey to find her biological father and is overwhelmed with happiness when she finally finds him, but also gets a big shock on discovering her pregnancy—knows how to rightly portray the mixed emotions without over-dramatization. There is definitely room for improvement but only time can shape those acting skills, if Bollywood is kind enough to give her more space. 

The only complain about the film is that the makers put way too much stress on certain scenes and sequences, making the movie slightly lengthy and close to boring. It definitely feel unnecessarily stretched out. Also, the story gives too little space and too little significance to Ananya (Tabu), Tia’s mother. The audience don’t get enough time to know her. An actress of Tabu’s caliber definitely deserves more space.

Who should watch it?

The 1hr 59mins long movie, albeit tardy at times, is definitely an entertainer. Underdog as he is, we believe Saif does have his fans and for a Saif fan, this is the best zone he could be in.

Genre: Drama, Comedy, Family

Run time: 1hr 59mins

Director: Nitin Kakkar

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Alaya Furniturewalla

So the latest news is, arch nemesis India and Pakistan have settled their differences and have joined hands to beat the British. They don’t use bombs and guns to defeat their colonizers though; their weapons of choice being hip-hop and bhangra this time around. Well that’s the plot of Remo D'Souza’s “Street Dancer 3D”, his third dance flick.

When the dancer turned choreographer turned reality TV judge D’Souza directed the 2013 hit “Any Body Can Dance”, the film with a cast of real dancers and not so popular Bollywood faces, besides Prabhu Deva and Kay Kay Menon, had an organic nature to its production. It was one of the first dance-oriented films in the industry and using actual dancers for the entire cast, the film was special and created a milestone. The director then decided to back this success with ABCD 2 in 2015. This one was more commercial-minded featuring star kids Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor in starring roles.

While D’Souza’s choreography skills are reaching new heights, the director seems to have entered a rabbit hole of filmy clichés in this one. With Varun and Shraddha repeated as the leads, “Street Dancer 3D” is more of a generic Bollywood drama than a full-fledged dance movie.

Shraddha (Inayat) leads a team of Pakistani dancers called “Rule Breakers” and Varun Dhawan (Sahej) is the leader of a team of Indians called “Street Dancers,” both based in London. Inevitably, the two teams are rivals in dance and also in cricket banter. But things change when Inayat discovers a group of homeless illegal immigrants in the undergrounds of London and takes it upon herself to help them. How? By winning a dance competition that has the huge prize money of £100,000. Very typical, right?

Yes, it gets too melodramatic at times. Yes, the incorporation of Bollywood masalas into the movie has stretched it into a lengthy 2hrs 30min run time. And yes, the under par acting performances and direction are evident. But does Street Dancer fail to entertain the audience seated it the theaters? It definitely doesn’t. All sorts of lapses in film production are nullified by the fact that the choreography is unprecedented in the industry.

The centerpiece of the drama takes place in the first half and the second half sees it unfolding with exceptional dance performances not only from the cast but also from different dance groups featured in the film. Besides Varun and Shraddha—both accomplished dancers—the cast includes Prabhu Deva (Ram Prasad), Norah Fatehi (Nora) and a list of familiar faces from Indian dance reality shows including Punit Pathak as Inder, Salman Yusuff Khan as Zayn, Raghav Juyal as Poddy, and Dharmesh Yelande as D.

Coming back to the film’s choreography, combined with excellent cinematography, it sets a benchmark. The music is basically Punjabi hip-hop and RnB but also draws influences from house, trance, trap, and much more. While the songs are not quite memorable in themselves, the combination of choreography, dance routines and photography create a visual extravaganza, especially with the deliberate 3D effects.

Who should watch it?

Anybody who enjoys watching dance will love this movie. Also, if not for anything else, do watch it for our homeboys Sushant Khatri, who plays “Chotu” in the movie and the dance troupe Wild Ripperz who feature as themselves. A stepping stone for Nepali dancers to be featured in such a huge stage.

Genre: Drama

Rating: 3 Stars

Run time: 2hrs 30min

Director: Remo D'Souza

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Prabhu Deva

In an interview, Isabel Allende said that she wrote ‘In the Midst of Winter’ in 2016 just when she was coming out of a divorce after 28 years of marriage and her agent, three close friends, and dog had all died. It was during these trying times that she came upon a quote by Albert Camus: “In the midst of winter, I finally found there was within me an invincible summer. For the summer that we all have inside to manifest we need to open the heart and take risks.” And that’s what the book is about: Three trau­matized people trapped in a snow­storm in Brooklyn, New York facing a life-and-death situation. By choos­ing to support one another and being kind, they ultimately discov­er the invincible summers that lie within them.The book opens with a minor car collision, between 60-year old schol­ar Richard Bowmaster and Evelyn Ortega, an undocumented Guate­malan refugee. This incident sets into motion a chain of events which forces the two and 62-year-old Lucia Maraz, a visiting professor at NYU, who is also Bowmaster’s coworker and tenant, to deal with a situa­tion that, to begin with, is not their problem, and which seems to be spiraling out of control by the min­ute. While ‘In the Midst of Winter’ mostly focuses on Richard, Lucia, and Evelyn’s seemingly ordinary lives, mystery and intrigue simul­taneously weave their way into the story, making what would otherwise have been a slow narrative into a gripping can’t-stop-till-I-know-what-happens-next read.

Lucia and Evelyn sometimes feel like extensions of Allende’s personal history as the author has said, time and again, that, for much of her life, she’s felt like a foreigner. And it seems here, through them, Allende is taking the liberty to make her readers understand what the immi­grant experience is like. Though there can be no better time to tell immigrants’ stories, you sometimes wish the writing were a little less flowery, allowing you to focus on the character’s lives instead of getting stuck in the imageries it manages to conjure.

Also, ‘In the Midst of Winter’ feels a little awkward because something doesn’t seem right and the ending too is a bit off. But, all in all, Allende deserves to be read because her sto­ries get you thinking about the many things you tend to take for granted in life.