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It is the ultimate joy to watch the story unfold against the backdrop of the famous soundtracks of Queen’s major hits

BIOPIC

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

CAST: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy

DIRECTION: Bryan Singer

Who should watch it?

Bohemian Rhapsody is tailor made for the fans of Queen. They will definitely take this film as a celebration and tribute to the band.

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is an expensively produced, stu­dio-backed biopic about Fred­die Mercury, the legendary Brit­ish musician who led one of the most iconic Rock bands of all time, Queen. Biopics, or the based-on-real-life films, by their nature, have received bad repute over the years for their episodic narratives that try to say so much about their sub­jects they end up saying little. Bohe­mian Rhapsody doesn’t break free of its genre dimensions but to call it “another band movie” would be a grave disservice to the film. Within its template storytelling it shelters an emotional core that effectively exposes the musical genius’s chaotic relation with his own roots, sexual­ity and fame. Mercury is played by American actor Rami Malek. The actor sinks his teeth deep into Mercury’s char­acter, giving us a fully lived-in per­formance. The film opens with the shot of Mercury waking up from a deep slumber and then psyching himself to perform at the 1985 Live- Aid Concert. As he makes his way to the stage, we magically travel back to the 1970 London, where a young Farrokh Bulsara rebels against his conservative Parsi immigrant family to pursue a bolder dream of music. En route, he befriends Roger May (Gwilym Lee) and Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) to form a band that performs at college pubs, and begins a roman­tic relationship with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). Much to his par­ents’ disapproval, Farrokh Bulsara changes his name to Freddie Mer­cury. Gradually Freddie becomes the force to push his other band mates to think big. They self-finance their first album that catapults them into mainstream pop music and lands them in America to much acclaim.

As far as Queen’s musical jour­ney is concerned, it feels way too regular. There’s the conflict among the group’s band members once they amass fame and fortune—the debate of whether to make passion­ate music or to be a formulaic sell­out—and the unwanted attacks from scandal-hungry media. Then again, hiding in these layers of familiarity are some powerfully interwoven moments.

One of them is the birthday scene where Freddie sits around with his band members and family. The fam­ily is meeting Freddie’s friends for the first time, so they are excited to talk about their rich Zoroastrian her­itage and their life before London. But Freddie continuously tries to change the topic, saying “No look­ing back, only forward”. A sense of Freddie not wanting to let his roots define him hauntingly mopes over this scene. We are left thinking: Was he so ashamed of his origins that he wanted to put a blanket over it? The answer to this is given when years later he purposefully injects “Bis­millah” in the lyrics of their most popular song Bohemian Rhapsody. A subtle hat tip that assures us he’s finally embraced his heritage.

The film refuses to take the spot­light away from Freddie Mercury and rarely focuses on the lives of other Queen members. It’s no sur­prise they feel underwritten and sometimes operate only to make the front-man look good. The film’s other weakness is it tries to string together a narrative jumping from one event to the other at lightning speed. But the ultimate joy of Bohe­mian Rhapsody is to watch the unfolding of the story orchestrated with the soundtrack of Queen’s major hits. The behind-the-scenes give us little nuggets about the cre­ative process of the band. Similarly, the concert sequences succeed in building an atmosphere of energy and nostalgia.

I wouldn’t say the film will age well. But for the time being, despite being formulaic, it is a movie that captures the spirit of Freddie Mer­cury and his music.

We simply loved ‘A Man Called Ove’ by Fredrik Backman and we were quite thrilled to run into his other works. But ‘Britt-Marie Was Here’, his latest book, fell short of our expectations, although that doesn’t mean we are not going to read Backman’s work ever again. It’s just that the bar was set high because of his debut novel and Britt-Marie, though charming in her own weird ways, fails to impress you as much as Ove. We meet Britt-Marie, a 63-year-old woman, who can and does, at times, come across as “a bloody nag-bag” especially when she insists people take off their dirty jerseys so she can wash them when they don’t have a change of clothes or not walk into a store with muddy shoes because she has just mopped the floor. But you soon find out that’s just her way of trying to manage her slowly spiraling out of control life. She’s stoically controlling the little things she can manage, like the way cut­lery is arranged in the drawers to using coasters, just to put back some semblance of order in her life.

For four decades, her husband has ruled their lives as she spent her time folding his clothes and raising his kids though they never accepted her as their mother. Then she receives news that her husband has had a heart attack, from his mistress, and she leaves him and her orderly home behind and lands up in a (fictional) town called Borg. At Borg, she meets a horde of char­acters, from ‘Somebody’, who runs the only pizzeria there and Sven, the only policeman in town who is smit­ten by Britt-Marie from Day One, to Vega, Omar and their elder brother Sami, who has a criminal past, and Ben (nicknamed Pirate) who makes Britt-Marie style his hair despite hers being straight-cut and basic.

Though nothing stands out in the book, the charm of reading lies in getting to know Britt-Marie and the people of Borg. Britt-Marie forces us to look at ourselves as she deals with the cracks in her life (that could have easily been in ours too). You see the chinks in her armor and learn how to fix yours. The thing with Swed­ish blogger, columnist and author Backman’s work is that he knows his characters and crafts them really well. Also, his characters are always quirky and thus quite unforgetta­ble. First there was Ove in A Man Called Ove, then Elsa’s Gran in ‘My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologies’ and, now, we have Britt-Marie. And though Britt-Marie might not be the most memorable of them all, you are also not likely to forget her anytime soon.

BRITT-MARIE WAS HERE

Author: Fredrik Backman

Genre: Fiction

Published: 2017 (Reprint edition) Publisher: Washington Square Press

Language: English

Pages: 336, paperback

What do you get at a typical bar and grill house? Beer and barbecues mostly. But Oskar Bar and Grill at Panipokhari Heights (opposite the Japanese Embassy) offers much more, both in terms of food and ambience. Apart from the regular grilled meat options, Oskar’s menu has special considerations for vege­tarians and other less voracious meat eaters too. So the menu offers everything from falafels to tacos, hummus and pita to bruschetta, pizzas, pastas and more, all with vegetarian options.

What separates Oskar from other eateries is that it is much more than just a restaurant. Oskar hosts a variety of events in its premises and hence has become a favorite hangout for its regular clients, celebrities and socialites. Music nights, football screenings, cocktail parties and salsa nights are a regular feature at Oskar besides the special events and programs it hosts.

THE MENU

Chef’s Special:

- Mediterranean Tacos

- Nicoise Salad

- Penne Arrabiata

Opening hours:

- 11 am to 11 pm

Location:

- Panipokhari, Ktm

Cards:

- Accepted

Meal for 2:

- Rs 2500

Reservations:

- 01-4418648

‘Thugs of Hindostan’ reunites writer/director Vijay Krishna Acharya and leading Bol­lywood star Aamir Khan, whose previous team up gave us ‘Dhoom 3’—the 2013 heist film that saw Khan play an illusionist turned bank rob­ber. Accused of drawing on plot elements from ‘The Prestige’ and ‘Now You See Me’ and featuring VFX mayhem of crazy and outright silly action stunts, the third installment of the Dhoom series was mostly panned. But despite its weak critical reception, it went on to become a Bollywood blockbuster. While still riding on the high wave of making one of the highest earning Hindi films ever, Acharya and Khan were handed a mammoth budget for their next film, Thugs of Hindostan, deemed to be the most expensive Hindi film ever made. If only lavish spending could mag­ically transform mediocre storytell­ing. Thugs of Hindostan is a poorly structured film that tries to cover up its design faults with patchy VFX work and overbearingly loud action sequences. Movie audiences will fail to find a true Bollywood adventure; but rather an exhaustive ordeal that whirlpools with predictability.

The year is 1795 and India is under the control of British East India Company. We meet Firangi Mallah (Aamir Khan), a smooth-talking trickster who earns his bread by helping gangs of Indian thugs rob passing travelers and then dou­ble crossing those Indian thugs by handing them over to the British officials. Impressed by his tricks and charms, and the notion that his loyalty can be bought, the cruel Brit­ish officer Clive (Lloyd Owen) gives Firangi the job to infiltrate the gang of outlaws led by Khudabaksh Azaad (Amitabh Bachchan), who seeks to chase away the British from the kingdom of Raunakpur, so that Prin­cess Zafira (Fatima Sana Shaikh), the rightful heiress to the throne, gets her kingdom back.

Even though Vijay Krishna Acha­rya sets his film during the Brit­ish Raj, Thugs of Hindostan is his­torically inaccurate. He chooses the aesthetics of classic Holly­wood swashbuckler adventures featuring pirates, cannon fights and swords duels. Khudabaksh’s outlaws live like gypsies in a cave and Firangi’s dressed like the Mad Hatter in ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Anyone used to this familiar narra­tive could easily guess how things proceed after Firangi penetrates Khudabaksh’s gang and how his unchanging deceitful nature is trans­formed by a greater calling. Acharya packs in no new surprises to chal­lenge our assumptions.

Aamir Khan makes do by portray­ing Firangi in animated and playful strokes. What’s essentially missing from Firangi is that he’s not much likable as the film’s protagonist. His double crossing intention is stretched so far that when he has a change of heart, it feels very make believe. Bachchan as Khudabaksh mostly glooms and harps on about “freedom” and “country’s soil”. Fatima Sana Shaikh, who ought to be the film’s emotional core and the one who wants to come to peace with her parents’ murder at the hands of the British, is sidelined by the stature of both Khan and Bachchan. She strictly maintains a tight face and emotes the feeling of distaste throughout the movie. And poor Katrina Kaif is restricted to two song sequences and in very brief flirty exchanges with Firangi.

Thugs of Hindostan is very pre­dictable and rarely has moments that take you to the edge of your seat. If the film turns out to be a box office winner for Aamir Khan and Vijay Krishna Acharya, then the real victims will be the audiences who let themselves get tricked by a movie made with sheer lack of imagina­tion, ambition and purpose.