Elizabeth Is Missing

Emma Healey

Language: English

Published: 2014

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Pages: 293, Paperback

Maud, 82, is slowly losing her memory. She makes tea and forgets to drink it. In her liv­ing room there is a long row of cold cups of tea on a shelf. She keeps find­ing little notes tucked in her pockets that remind her “not to have more toast”, “not to cook”, and definitely “not to buy tins of peach slices”. But the one note that keeps reappearing says, “Elizabeth is missing”.Despite being assured that her best friend is fine, Maud is convinced that something has happened to Elizabeth. She makes rounds to her friend’s home (only to find it desert­ed), calls Elizabeth’s son Peter at night to ask about her whereabouts, and even places a missing person’s advertisement in the paper. She is determined to find out what’s hap­pened to her friend but it’s tricky when she can’t differentiate between the past and the present, or even remember what she did a day before for that matter.

Many years ago, Maud’s elder sis­ter Susan or Sukey had also disap­peared and her family never found out what had happened to her. Maud keeps confusing events relating to her sister’s disappearance with those of Elizabeth’s current unaccountable absence. However, even when her mind fails her and no one believes a thing she says, Maud keeps look­ing for her friend and tries to recall what exactly happened to her sis­ter. In the end, Maud manages to dig up old facts hidden within the recesses of her memory to solve a long-buried crime.

Maud’s thought processes are, by the nature of her illness, repetitive. She constantly does and says the same things over and over again. Though that could have made the story slow and dull, Healey’s nar­rative is gripping enough to keep it from being bleak at any point. Healey writes about old age and aging with such finesse that you can sort of see yourself in Maud’s place someday.

Maud, with her fractured memory, also seems like a highly unreliable narrator at times. You can’t be sure if what she’s telling you is actually the truth (or just her version of it) and this makes it hard for you to guess where the story is headed. But that’s the charm of Healey’s debut nov­el—she lets you be the detective and shift through the clues from Maud’s memories.

Elizabeth Is Missing is many things: a crime novel, a story about mental illness and dealing with mental illness, and a meditation on the complexities of aging. It’s also a powerful and affecting portrait of a woman’s slide into dementia and the frustrations that come with it. It doesn’t fit into any particular genre but it’s a deeply satisfying read and that really should be a whole other genre in itself.

On paper, “Password” has everything that makes for a blockbuster potboiler—romance, action, comedy, suspense, and a raunchy item number. But when it comes to execution, the film falls flats, making it a broth spoiled because of too many ingredients, and a serious lack of intelligence on the part of the filmmakers.

Directed by Samrat Basnet, a national level taekwondo player turned movie director, Password is an entirely unintelligent production that is made with a big budget but bad skills. Everything that can go wrong in a movie goes completely awry in Password, proving the legitimacy of the ‘chaos theory.’

The film stars Bikram Joshi as Bikkie (a nickname from his real life), a most wanted criminal in the list of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) Nepal. He is in London to find a ‘password’ to a locker that has a Shiva statue priced a million pounds in the international black market. The password is with Sanju (Pari Rana) who gets it as a text message from her dying father, who is in turn best friends with Bikkie’s murdered father. She’s too naive to be ware of it. Also pursing the password is baddie Jojo (Anoop Bikram Shahi) who wants to get his hands on the invaluable statue.

So the plot is simple and trite, yet perfect for a high-speed action thriller. But the filmmaking is so juvenile that it is barely watchable through its 2hrs 5min runtime. As the film progresses through its very loose screenplay and random sequences, its feels like the movie was made by someone who came across a lot of money and decided to spend it on sheer whimsy.

The cast is its biggest let-down. Joshi—who introduces himself as a certified chartered accountant, actor, writer, and a taekwondo black belt on his personal website—is unconvincing as the lead character. He might have passion for acting and we can’t hold his profession against him, but looks like the accountant’s calculations were all wrong in this movie. His acting lacks the intensity to be convincing. His body language does not fit with his character and the little dancing he does exposes his inability to groove.

The same with Rana, the lead actress. She has the looks for sure, but her acting skills are way below par. She can’t convey emotions and always appears confused. Why she was even cast is a wonder!

Well, the filmmakers seriously seem to have no idea how to make a bearable movie or to properly spend their money. Many Nepali directors would kill to have that kind of budget. But the filmmakers of Password waste their resources on superfluous stuff when they should have been spending on better actors and a better dialogue writer. As it is, the dialogues are cringe-worthy! Really. We won’t try to translate the weak punchlines, but to give you a flavor, in one scene, Jojo screams, “Welcome to THE London!” Wait… what?? Was everyone sleeping through pre and post-production?

The film tries to offer comic relief in the form of Rabindra Jha (Kanhaiya), Bikrant Basnet (Balram) and Prabin Khatiwoda (Chature)—men from the CIB dressed like MIB (Men in Black) but in much cheaper looking suits—who roam the streets of London in search of Bikkie. Then there’s Buddhi Tamang playing Mangal, a London-based cab driver who befriends Bikkie and helps him, and also ups the humor quotient. But it is clear that even these talented actors cannot perform without the support of stronger main characters. Now Bikram Joshi is no Dayahang Rai or Bipin Karki.

Who should watch it?

No one. And looks like no one is watching it because the cinema hall was less than 10 percent occupied on a Monday matinee show. The filmmakers were heavy on promotion, especially with Sunny Leone as the highlight for the item number. But with Sunny’s limited dancing skills and the amateur lyrics, the item number does not help much. In their attempt to cash in on Sunny’s star-power, the filmmaking team ended up giving her the whole spotlight while getting back nothing.

Rating: 1 star 

The Subaru XV slots nicely between its medium and large SUV avatars occupied by the Forester and the Outback respectively. Now in its second iteration, the XV is completely new, although it doesn’t look like it. Today we are going to drive it and tell you exactly how it is.

Exterior

Yes, it looks like a hatchback on stilts. It’s longer and wider than before—though no higher. Up front, the XV looks strong. The large hatchback silhouette has a strong stance that emphasizes the adventure feel of the vehicle. You get a decent looking front grille with black cladding all over the car as is the styling norm these days. There are aggressive LED headlamps with sharp looking DRLs. This is accentuated by large tires with 17- or 18-inch wheels, roof rails that look like they can handle heavy weight, and a sloping roofline. All of which give the impression of a highly capable hatchback going on an adventure. Over on the rear, you get LED tail lamps and a chunky rear bumper, and a blacked out roof spoiler with integrated brake lamps complete the look of the XV.

Interior

Inside the Subaru XV, everything feels chunky and satisfying to touch and feel. There are big buttons and switches everywhere from the door inserts, infotainment, and climate control. You get fabric seats with premium finish. The tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel allows for a lot of adjustment, and the driver seat is six-way-adjustable so you will be able to find a sweet driving position quite easily. Visibility is excellent out on the front thanks to a big windshield, small front pillars, and small sectional windows near the windshield. A big rear window and rear quarter-panel windows make for great rear visibility as well.

The steering wheel is nice and solid, encouraging you to drive more. There’s also steering mounted controls for the infotainment system. Speaking of infotainment, you get not one but two screens on the dashboard and that’s when you exclude the small screen on the instrument cluster.

The main screen is a 6.5-inch infotainment unit loaded with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, along with a CD player and digital radio while there’s also an 8-inch unit on higher trims. The center screen’s crisp graphics are appealing. The XV’s cabin has plenty of headroom and legroom at the front and a decent amount of room at the back. But those over 6 feet may find the backseat legroom a little cramped. The Subaru XV also comes with a large 310 liter of boot-space. Overall it has an interior worthy of leading its class.

Performance

Under the hood, the Subaru XV is powered by a 2.0-liter boxer four petrol engine mated to a Lineartronic CVT that makes a decent output of 154bhp and 196Nm of peak torque. The car is a bit clumsy to get a move on but will pick up speed once it gets going; highway cruising and overtaking will come easily without a lot of throttle input. The Subaru XV comes equipped with All Wheel Drive (AWD) which may not be noticeable on the tarmac, but makes a lot of difference off-road. Thanks to the power being delivered on all four wheels the XV makes short work of even bad potholes and crummy road surfaces. The steering is light but does offer good feedback and the car gives you a confident ride helped by an AWD system that never makes you doubt the amount of available traction.

Off-roading is where the Subaru XV shines, thanks to the 220mm of ground clearance. Subaru's X-mode in the XV, basically an advanced off-road mode with auto hold and hill descent functionality, is fantastic, and is a rare feature in this class. While the XV does look like a scaled hatchback, make no mistake, this is a serious off-roader.

Verdict

The Subaru XV will not turn many heads on the road, but the bottom line is that it is a solid car. All the elements in the XV are of high quality carefully put together to make this one complete package. It looks great on the outside. The interior, although simple, is one of the best places to be. The engine packs a decent punch on the tarmac, but it is when the tarmac ends the XV is a different animal all-together, giving full-size SUVs a run for their money. All this, in a small, practical, family-friendly package makes the Subaru XV an instant recommendation.

Despite its discouraging 2 hrs 25 mins-length, “Chhichhore” at the cinema doesn’t feel long. The coming-of-age story of young college students who turn into responsible adults is told in a parallel narrative, one of which is filled with fun and comedy while the other deals with the serious issue of broken family, pressure to succeed, and suicidal tendencies. The director of the highly successful sports biopic “Dangal” (2016) Nitesh Tiwari dons a different hat for Chhichhore, which has more typical Bollywood features.

The film starts in the present with Raghav (Mohammad Samad), the young son of Anirudh (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Maya (Shraddha Kapoor), attempting suicide by jumping off a roof when he fails to clear his engineering entrance exam. Raghav survives but is severely injured and the old Bollywood formula of ‘miracle over medicine’ ensues. Then Anirudh has the bright idea of encouraging his son’s healing process by narrating to him the story of his college days and his quirky friends from the H4 Hostel—also taunted by the rest of the college as ‘Losers’—and of their encouraging run, even as heavy underdogs, in a sports tournament.

The narrative takes us back to the late 80s/early 90’s (the time horizon is undisclosed except for the name of the 1985 movie “Teri Meherbaniyaan” a character mentions which helps us take a shot at guessing the timeline). Now this is where Chhichhore gets interesting. In this narrative, the audience gets a piece of nostalgia of their college days and if they’ve ever lived in hostels, they’ll find the universal camaraderie and brotherhood of ‘hostel boys’ really intriguing.

Although Rajput and Kapoor are the supposed stars of the film, having done many lead roles in the past, they don’t entirely get the screen and that’s what makes Chhichhore a bit different from the regular ‘hero-heroine’ Bollywood sagas. The screen time is cleverly distributed between an ensemble of supporting cast—Tahir Raj Bhasin as Derek, Tushar Pandey as Mummy, Saharsh Kumar Shukla as Bevda, Varun Sharma as Sexa, and Naveen Polishetty as Acid—who are part of the Anirudh’s ‘Losers’ group.

Director Tiwari smartly introduces the supporting cast with small backstories of their own and gives enough screen time to these talented actors to create a diverse screenplay. This narrative is full of college romance, ‘bromance,’ ragging and rivalry typical of an engineering college. What makes the film better is that the director gets the best out of all supporting actors, even the ones in very small roles. Nobody seems out of place.

But we only wish this was the case of the ‘present’ narrative. Maya and Anirudh, Derek, Tushar, Mummy, Bevda and Sexa appear in their middle-aged versions in this narrative, with the same actors playing these roles, but none of them looks believable. Rajput and Kapoor don’t look old enough and seem too lost, and so do the H4 boys. Despite some balding, grey hairs and a few attempts to dig up some middle-age gravitas, the young actors fail to look convincingly old. Given that most of the film is humorous, even the intense scenes feel like the actors are performing a comedy skit as middle-aged people and they may break out of their characters with a hysterical laugh at any moment. But that does not happen.

Tiwari’s transition from directing the perfectionist Aamir Khan in Dangal to working with a cast of newcomers is not smooth. One can only wonder what made the director of a $300 million+ gross sports biopic, made as realistic as possible, choose to work on a ‘semi-sports’ fiction where an engineering college has an annual sports event that runs for two months! To cut a long story short, Chhichhore attempts a “Jo Jita Wohi Sikander” (1992) but ends up as an improved version of “Student of the Year” (2012).

Rating: 2.5 stars

Who should watch it?

Despite a few flaws in storytelling, Chhichhore is quite enjoyable. If you’re up for college comedy and don’t mind the melodramatic bits, you’re in for a fun ride. PS: Although the film is rated PG, there are many direct and indirect sexual innuendos. But which college doesn’t have lusty, dirty college boys, right?