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Sonakshi Sinha-starrer ‘Khandaani Shafakhana’ would be a much better film had the runtime been, say, 90 minutes, instead of the 136 minutes it actually is. Nothing wrong with the story. Sinha plays Babita ‘Baby’ Bedi, a young woman who has inherited an old Unani medical dispensary from her deceased uncle, Mamaji (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). The problem is that it’s a sex clinic, and Baby won’t be able to make it her own unless she runs it for six months, as stipulated in Mamaji’s will. A young woman running a sex clinic in the heart of the conservative Punjabi heartland is problematic on multiple fronts.

Marketed as the ‘the only sex film for the whole family’, the film takes up a delicate subject, which is still a taboo in many parts of South Asia. Mamaji was himself shunned by the Unani medical community for bringing the fraternity into disrepute by running a sex clinic. Twenty years later, when Baby wants to run it, she is shunned and shamed as well.

At the start, Baby is only interested in completing the six months so that she can legally inherit the clinic and be able to sell it: Her indebted family desperately needs the money. But in time she comes to realize that Mamaji, instead of being someone of disrepute, had actually helped countless couples to lead happy conjugal lives by improving their sex lives. And the realization that Mamaji trusted Baby, and no one else, to look after the clinic, also makes her consider keeping it.

‘Khandaani Shafakhana’ is a lighthearted comedy and fun to watch in bits and pieces. It also makes a strong case for sex education for youngsters and opening up about sex to bring it out of the closet. Baby’s struggle as a medical representative, her light-hearted riff with her brother Bhooshit (Barun Sharma), the weird complaints Baby’s patients come up with—all add a humorous touch. The rapper Badshah, who plays a Punjabi singing heartthrob, looks the part as well.

So what is wrong with the film? First, it is a touch too slow. Second, without giving away the plot, parts of it are unconvincing: everything happens so fast that events often seem unbelievable. Sinha is brilliant in her role. But for a mainstream Bollywood movie, the weight is too much for her to carry alone. A promising plot thus underwhelms.

The good bit is the film’s contribution to making sex less of a taboo in this part of the world. In this, the movie, again, largely succeeds. It also breaks the stereotype of males as family’s breadwinners in traditional India.

If that was the sole expectation of the film production team, they have succeeded. But if they wanted to make a fun movie and mint some money out of it, we are afraid they have won’t get far. People go to Bollywood films with certain expectations, and Khandani Shafakhakhana fails to live up to them.

Who should watch it?:

If you are parents of young children, this film offers the most gentle lesson possible on the birds and the bees. You will also enjoy it if you like women-centric cinema. But it’s a little slow and for the important message it wants to deliver, not always believable.

Movie: Khandaani Shafakhana

Genre: Comedy

Actors: Sonakshi Sinha, Badshah, Varun Sharma, Annu Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda

Director: Shilpi Dasgupta

Runtime: 136 minutes

Rating: 3 stars

I remember buying my first ever copy of ‘Matilda’ by Roald Dahl. I was nine and the book cost Rs 350. I was fifty rupees short but I desperately wanted to read Matilda, having recently finished Dahl’s ‘The BFG’. I told the bookstore owner I would be back the next day with the rest of the money and she was nice enough to let me take the book home. There are some books that just make you happy. Matilda is one of those books that I still pick up whenever I feel a bit bogged down.

The story is heartwarming and uplifting and Dahl knows just how to delight you. Filled with humor, adventure, and a bit of mystery, this children’s book is one you should (have) read as a child (or an adult, if your childhood was Dahl-less) and to your children well before they are able to read on their own. I recently read the book and was transported back to my childhood when all I ever did during the weekends was read, and eat Cadbury Perk. Life before there was laundry and vegetable shopping to be done.

The story is about an amazingly gifted girl named Matilda who can multiply “big numbers” in her head and loves Charles Dickens. By the time she is three, she has taught herself how to read. By four, she is done with all the children’s books at the local library. She is brilliant and her classmates at school and her teacher all love her. But despite being so perfect, Matilda’s life isn’t a happy one.

Her parents couldn’t be more indifferent. Her father, Mr Wormwood, a dishonest used car salesman, actually encourages her to watch TV rather than spend her time reading. Her mother, who goes off to bingo leaving little Matilda home alone, tells her “brains never got a woman anywhere”. And they punish her for being able to solve a mathematical problem (simple addition) when her elder brother fails to do so. Basically, she is punished for being smart.

Then there’s her nightmare of a school principal. A former hammer-throwing champion who flings children at no provocation at all because she hates children and is “glad she never was one”, Mrs Trunchbull is a “gigantic holy terror, a fierce tyrannical monster who frightens the life out of the pupils and teachers alike”. The only nice person in the story is Miss Honey, Matilda’s class teacher, who is also Mrs Trunchbull’s niece. Her parents died in unexplained circumstances and Miss Honey feels it was Mrs Trunchbull who killed them but is unable to do anything about it. Matilda is determined to help Miss Honey. And she can do that because she isn’t a regular five-year-old. She has powers. She can move things with her mind.
If you feel you can’t be reading a children’s book, I urge you to reconsider. Matilda is a fun and funny story. You will find yourself smiling and giggling throughout. And when are we ever too old for that? Also, as with any Dahl story, Matilda has a strong message for both children and adults. She makes you believe in the power of standing up for yourself and the ones you love.

Publicity stunts, controversies, media debates, and social media hullaballoos can only lead the horse to water. But they can’t make it drink. This holds true in the case of Prakash Kovelamudi’s “Judgementall Hai Kya.” The film created quite a stir in the Indian media, first for its original name (‘Mental Hai Kya’), then for the possible clash of its release with Hrithik Roshan starrer “Super 30” and then for its lead Kangana Ranaut’s public spat with an Indian journalist. “All publicity is good publicity,” they say in show business. But how long till the audience identify with Ranaut and her elder sister’s ploy to grab the limelight by hook or by crook, just in time for her every new release?

The filmmakers bank too much on Ranaut. As a result, her character gets way too much exposure, even at the cost of keeping a healthy pace of the plot. Ranaut plays “Bobby Grewal”, a young woman suffering from acute psychosis resulting from a childhood trauma. In the movie, she shows all the symptoms of psychosis like delusions, hallucinations, mood disturbance, and bizarre behavior. Bobby works as a voice-over artist, dubbing non-Hindi films into Hindi, and typical of her mental illness, she internalizes all the character roles she dubs. They all stay in her head.

A loner living in a big home left to her by her parents, she rents out a section of the house to new tenants—Keshav (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife Reema (Amyra Dastur). That’s when the trouble begins to brew. Bobby is at first obsessed with spying on Keshav and Reema’s personal life and then on proving him a murderer. The twists and turns thereafter is what should have been driving the film. But again, the filmmakers are adamant on taking us inside Bobby’s head and thus the plot is watered down.

Ranaut as the mentally unstable Bobby—who loves to make origami with newspaper-cuttings detailing rapes, murders and domestic violence—carries over the eccentricities of her earlier characters from “Tanu Weds Manu” (2011) and “Queen” (2014). She does wonderfully well in her role as a psychologically challenged yet gifted person, but after all the expectations she has created about her new release, she clearly punches below the weight.

Also, for someone whose Hindi-speaking skills are newly acquired and someone who still struggles with her diction, the role of a Hindi dubbing artist does not come across as entirely believable. Director Kovelamudi pays a bit too much emphasis on glorifying Ranaut’s Bobby. So much so that the other important character of Keshav and the talented actor Rao playing him, are unjustly denied screen-time and character growth.

While Ranaut gobbles up the limelight, Rao subtly aces whatever little screen-time he gets. In “Judgementall Hai Kya”, he plays someone he has never done in his career—a handsome hunk and a ladies’ man. He is not weighed down by past laurels, and has no point to prove, which is perhaps why his new character is a breath of freshness. Although the filmmakers chose to put him on a lower pedestal in the equilibrium in a story that supposedly should have been a battle between two main characters, he holds strong grounds and proves why he is so loved in Bollywood.

Who should watch it?

The movie, albeit erratic, is bearable for someone who likes psychological thrillers. Also for the Balaji audience, producer Ekta Kapoor takes a break from her typical ‘bottleful of glycerin, bucketsful of tears yielding mother-in-law v daughter-in-law struggles’.

But for those non-innocent souls who’ve watched her AltBalaji series like “Gandi Baat” and “X.X.X” you know she’s holding back. But what could she do? This is mainstream Bollywood. 

Movie: Judgementall Hai Kya

Director: Prakash Kovelamudi

Actors: Kangana Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao, Amyra Dastur

Run time: 116 minutes

Rating: 2.5 stars

A disclaimer first: I have never liked Paulo Coelho. I didn’t even like ‘The Alchemist’ that was so widely acclaimed. I think the Brazilian novelist’s writing really doesn’t deserve the hype it has received. The stories he has chosen to tell might feel relatable or even inspire some people but the messages in his brand of ‘self-help-lit’ aren’t anything new. Like a wise friend once said, you are supposed to leave Coelho behind in high school at best. I picked up ‘The Spy’ because I had forgotten to carry a book and needed to read something while waiting for an appointment.

Here, Coelho retells the story of Margaretha Geertruida, better known by the stage name Mata Hari, who went to trail for allegedly being a double agent for France and Germany during the 20^th century. An exotic dancer and courtesan, she was ultimately executed by a firing squad in France. The story, which doesn’t follow a chronological order, is told in the form of letters between Mata Hari and her lawyer. At the beginning of the book, Mata Hari is positive that she will be pardoned but, as she awaits the verdict of her trail, she writes to her lawyer instructing him on all the things that need to be carried out if her request is denied. 

If you aren’t familiar with Mata Hari’s story then The Spy can, in bits and pieces, read like a thriller and historical drama. But it isn’t Coelho’s narrative that grips you. It’s Mata Hari and her story. From being sexually exploited by the school principal and receiving jewelry and favors in exchange for sex to meeting Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, Mata Hari makes for a fascinating subject. But, as an author, Coelho has failed to develop his character. He has sketched pre-war Paris better than Mata Hari. And he also drops bit and pieces of his pop philosophy that don’t really go with the story. What The Spy will do is leave you wanting to know more about Mata Hari and the internet can be a great resource for that.

As you delve deeper into Mata Hari’s story, you will realize that Coelho has barely scratched the surface. Historical fiction is a challenging genre requiring first a lot of research and then an ability to fictionalize events without distorting the facts. While Coelho gets the facts right, The Spy, which is a novella, doesn’t feel like a story he has spent considerable time thinking about and writing. It feels like a spur of the moment book at best and that’s unfortunate given how Mata Hari is a character with so much potential.

Genre: Historical Fiction

The Spy

Paulo Coelho

Translated into English by Zoë Perry

Published: 2016

Publisher: Penguin Books

Pages: 186, Paperback