Precious

[This review will appear in one of our company's monthly creativity newsletters]

Precious - Movie

Precious

If everything around your life is hostile and every situation you run into needs you to fight for survival, then where do you turn to? If the reality of the world you live in is all about abuse, incest, teen pregnancy, a child with down’s syndrome, a mother who is unemployed but exploits the system and hates you for being a bed companion to your father, then how do you find a new lease in life? Will you be able to handle it if you get one?

For a director to take up a story of an illiterate and an abused 16 year old African American from Harlem as narrated by Sapphire, it needs a certain kind of conviction to be genuine and honest, because the last thing you want, when you are adapting a novel of this nature is to yield to your cinematic grandiosity and get carried away with dramatization.

Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe plays to perfection the role of a domestically abused 16 year old, who goes through her second incest pregnancy in a sad but illiterate way. Mo’Nique is not far behind in the way she gets to portray a peanut loving, orange soda gulping, TV addicted mother, who could care less for her daughter. Just these 2 characters alone help build such an intense setting within the first 10 minutes of the movie.

It is not very easy for a book to do that, but Lee Daniels does it deftly in its movie form. From that point onwards, he had his task cut out easily, because all he had to do was not go overboard with emotions. Yet, when Mary (the mother) unfolds the story behind her hatred for “Precious” (daughter) to the social worker (Mrs. Weiss, played by Mariah Carey), if you are able to watch those few minutes on screen, without some kind of a disgust, remorse or general disdain towards human beings, then your heart is not in the right place.

“Precious” does not try to find solutions for all her problems, nor is she pessimistic of finding a way out of her miseries. She is neither a symbol of hope nor a symbol of failure. She is not your everyday girl, who deals with everyday problems, but fortunately for her, she is so illiterate and unexposed to a normal world, that she didn’t get to realize what she went through in her life till she was 16, is not normal. By the time she had that exposure & realization, she was sure that the worst was behind her. So, she gets to continue her struggle in a more realistic way.

A touching and a tumultuous teen-tale..

A Market street stroll

I think the only problem I have with Vasantha Balan’s “Angadi Theru” is his directorial inability to satisfy his creative persona. The creator in him wanted to portray suffering as it exists in real world in Ranganathan Street. But the director had too much too chew, when the focus of the story was really on these 2 young adults trying to make a living, falling in love and supporting their struggling families all while suffering through capitalistic exploitations. In the process, there are several characters that were brought in just to showcase suffering without really contributing to the main storyline.

Now, the above critical comment notwithstanding, I have to confess that this is an honest movie that shook me . I am familiar with these “Annachi” likes who have moved on and grown bigger..after building their empires in south Tamil Nadu. Growing up in Tirunelveli, I actually know some families who sent their kids to work in certain “stores” in Ranganathan street. Leaving the dramatization of certain aspects of the bossy sadism portrayed in the movie, this movie should bring some focus on this ‘industry’ and its inhuman labor practices.

I was very impressed with the very honest & very real opinions expressed by Vasantha Balan in this interview. My stroll to the market street shook me, moved me and certainly made me reach out for Kleenex.

My name is…

The funniest scene in the movie to me was that of a Gujarati motel owner shown wearing a T-Shirt with a caption “My name is Jitesh and I am not a Terrorist”.

And the second funniest scene was that of the same Motel owner trying to give out a room at a $25 premium to a white couple, because Khan stayed in that room.

And the third funniest scene was that of Khan saving the the town of Wilhelmina by traveling from LA to a hurricane imploded community by bus, whose residents couldn’t save themselves on their own (because they didn’t know where to catch the bus perhaps??) and instead found asylum in a church whose roof starts falling down exactly 2 minutes after Khan enters it, so that the required amount of KJo secret ingredient aka drama, could be liberally added.

Now, I don’t think the moviemakers intended these scenes to be part of their humor content for their film (for which they had to heavily rely on Shah Rukh’s acting skills) and hence they, make my observation all the more noteworthy.

The Gumpish reference to Khan’s good deeds in spite of the society’s bad deeds to him was obvious, but definitely not “in-your-face” types. Same can be told about Khan’s dancing sequences which brought oodles of memories of Kamal Hassan’s “Suvvi Suvvi” dance steps from “Swathi Muthyamu”. Of course, that was K. Vishwanath who dealt with a kind of Autism in a very native way and this is KJo who can only think of story lines that are beyond an average Indian middle class background. Even though the flashbacks of a Borivali (?) brought up Khan tried to portray his modest upbringing, to me, those sequences didn’t work and almost seemed like an afterthought.

Mama Jane and Funny Hair Joel?? Other than the setting (like using a Georgian black community with 200 odd people and 700 odd cows, hurricane, Iraq wars martyrdom, etc.), this plot of the movie seemed totally not needed.

But who am I to judge a movie? After all, making a movie is not that easy, especially when it involves Shah Rukh and Kajol. Yet, at the cost of sounding brood, let me state with utmost respect to the KJo brand of movies prior to MNIK, that KJo had tried to cross this divide that existed between his comfort zone and his wannabe comfort zone through MNIK.

As his dad, I would say “Well done my boy! You have done me proud”.

As his adulatory fan, I would say, “Wow..is that you? You totally rocked”…

But I am neither. So I think I would just say, he failed to cross that divide. But managed not to fall down into the canyon by hanging onto a rope that is neither here nor there.

My take on what KJo achieved through MNIK

• He proved his critics wrong – He can make movies that don’t involve glamsham, razzle dazzle and absolute tear jerking melodrama every 20 minutes
• He pulled off a movie where the songs played good supporting role and didn’t spin the movie out of control
• He could make Shah Rukh act the way Ashutosh did in Swades – Underplay (Asperger’s syndrome gives the required platform, as people with this condition typically project an unemotional appearance). Many scenes that I can say, provided the lever for Shah Rukh, to come out of his own shadows. And of course, having a story line that largely rests on his shoulders, Khan does everything he could from playing a Dustin Hoffman to Tom Hanks to Kamal Hassan – all in his own style..
• He could make Kajol do a powerful comeback by giving her an award winning scene – No I am not talking about the scene when Mandira asks Khan “Marry me?”..in the most unromantically romantic way..and not even the scene when she tells Khan that “Sam is dead” with absolute stillness..but I am talking about the scene when she finally cries out loud..
• He could make a movie about terrorism by not taking sides on the sensitive religious issues

My take on what KJo failed to achieve through MNIK

• He couldn’t cross over to the other side with all honesty..I don’t even think he made compromises. Don’t definitely think he had to, once he set out to make a movie of this kind. I think all the twists and turns, Mama Janes and Joels, Hurricanes and Hackers, Presidential Elections and PBC correspondents are all part of the standard KJo formula, which were quite cleverly added – clever only because of the settings & backdrops, in order to satisfy the real moviemaker in him
• Biting more than what he could chew…and choking in the process. Why deal with so many plots when he couldn’t logically conclude all of them in the fashion he wanted to..? If it had been one of those KJo movies where you expect only tears, laughs, colors, songs, colors, dances, colors, tears and colors, then these questions wouldn’t come to one’s mind. For example consider the following: There is the whole Asperger’s syndrome plot – which tries to explain the protagonist’s difficulties to lead a normal life, The Brother envy plot, the Hindu guy marrying a muslim girl plot, The whole terror plot, American neighbor plot, Black community plot, Khan doing good deeds plot, Racial crime plot, Khan wanting to meet the president plot, The romance plot, The investigative journalism plot, The Love vs Hatred plot, The …,,&*^^ plot.. ok..you get the picture? The only plot that I thought he was able to round up in a smooth way was the racial crime plot…He pretty much choked up on the rest

MNIK – The movie

Notwithstanding all the above highlighted negative views of the movie, I have to say that the movie was a decent fare and worth the dollar I spent. Given that this was a deviation for KJo from his regular track, I have to say, he was at least courageous enough to make a movie based on some dark issues that loom in our current times, which we have to deal with on a day to day basis.

KJo will never be able to cross to the other side of “classy”cinema or even to “raw” cinema (Vishal Bhardwaj’s school), so unless he has a subject like this to deal with, he should go back to his comfort zone. The movie works for all of the positive views expressed above plus Shah Rukh, Kajol and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. SEL’s background score was brilliant.

If you are in Mumbai or Maharashtra, at least to make a statement against Sena, you should buy a ticket (and not watch it if you choose not to). And I don’t have any regrets watching my first KJo movie in theaters.

To draw inspiration from Khan’s Ammi’s famous quote from the movie, KJo now has proved he can make two kinds of films -

1) Tearjerkers with tons of Melodrama which will make people laugh, cry, dance and envy at the lavish/foreign lifestyle of the lead characters, but will never make them remember what the main story line is..

and

2) Tearjerkers with some melodrama which will make people cry, laugh and envy at the foreign lifestyle of the lead characters and also make them remember what the story line is..

My name is Ganpy and I don’t review movies for living…

The Last Emperor in Goa

Ayirathil Oruvan

A sincere attempt gone tipsy due to over indulgence on certain incidents that otherwise pose no relevance to the grand scheme of this project.  This is how I would summarize AO. For the first time, I was interested in checking out a Selvaraghavan movie in theaters. And it is largely due to the canvas he had taken on. Lots of credit to the director for his balls to try to do something this large. It is definitely a must watch on screens for the attempt and effort. The nerve of the historians and other ‘tamil culture police’ is always amusing and they always need some movie to go after. Right now it is Selva’s turn to earn their crazy wrath. It is a movie for heaven’s sake!! What do you expect? Why the double standards when they watch a Vijay or Vijaykanth movie and a movie like this? Pretty gutsy canvas and Pretty ballsy effort. Need more directors to start imagining tamil movies on this kind of a canvas – not necessarily grand & expensive, but out-of-the-box.

Goa

Full marks to Venkat Prabhu for his self-confidence in pulling off a 2:45 movie based on 3 unknown faces who give a scoot for anything that the Tamil movie cliches would call for. Absolutely a hilarious holiday with the only sore point being too many songs. Got carried away by the family involvement and included more songs than what a light hearted comedy would need. The songs on their own are not bad..And finally, bringing out a gay storyline in a ‘mainstreamish’ funny way is again a reflection of his confidence. Premji & Jai were brilliant. Overall, a throughly enjoyable holiday and that is the best part — No pretensions whatsoever in Venkat Prabhu’s movies!

In Defiance of a Revolution

No. This is not a political rant. I recently watched 2 movies and even though they may not deserve a lengthy review, I am destitute of anything intellectual at this moment, but want to rant about something that may prove orificial for anything remotely residual in my cerebral parts that bear any sense of sanity.

Having established the purpose of this blog very crisply, let me start off with “Defiance”. Edward Zwick tries to find a place for himself in the list of A ranked directors who have dealt with WWII and the pertinent Jew theme that goes with it. What makes this movie worth watching in spite of a “have seen it” or “have heard it”  backdrop is the fact that the main blood line of the story is not the acrimonious battle between the Germans and the Jews, nor the spiteful & inhuman acts committed towards the Jews, but the intense survival story of a tribe. I am referring to them as a tribe, because these are a group of stragglers – stranded Jews, who either escaped from the German attacks or were let go and are complete strangers to each other. Their temporary settlement inside the forests of Belarussia happens accidentally, thanks to the helpless nature of four siblings, who inadvertently become the tribal leaders, soon to be followed by power struggle, politics, romance, inclement weather and how survival itself is very difficult as their tribe continues to grow. Daniel Craig and Liev Shreiber have great roles to essay and overall the movie did leave a mark in my mind.

“Revolutionary Road” is a Sam Mendes movie that deals with.. in simple terms, the everyday struggle that a normal married couple face. But in complicated terms, the story can be analyzed in different levels. The movie questions the place of “society” we live in, the expectations & the responsibilities we “supposedly” have for the society and how all of that can affect the love that a genuinely caring couple carry for each other. Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet were brilliant in the movie. I can’t think of any better way to express their portrayal of a couple who goes through such a roller coaster of emotions. Kate can carry that unsaid sorrow in her eyes so well that there were scenes when she was faking a smile for her husband and as soon as he turns around, the sorrow grips her face as the smile gets wiped away.  The couple gets sucked into the environs of their suburbia and the mundaneness of his regular job, which is so boring, yet becomes more favorable when it comes to choosing their future. Overall, a simple story told very powerfully with the help of 2 brilliant performers. Movies like this one are hard to make because the story line does not involve any twist or turn or an action packed stunt or some suspense or thrill.

Thus I spent my weekend in defiance of a revolution.

Indiana to Wisconsin and Chennai to Hyderabad

There is no apparent connection between the above two pairs of geographic locations other than the one I am trying to make here.

John Dillinger started from Indiana and died in Wisconsin. The foolhardy friends who started in Chennai to actually end up in Hyderabad, swerved off their path and ended up saving Saroja. That in summary were the 2 movies that I watched in the past week.

Saroja is a great reminder to movie fans like me that if you want to be a versatile movie maker you have to be able to make movies in all genres. Kudos to Venkat Prabhu for attempting a thriller. He could have easily gone wrong and made the movie an intolerable experience in spite of all the stylish camera work, etc. But, instead he made an entertaining movie that pretty much kept the audience glued to their seats without getting bored too much. The 2 unnecessary speed breakers that I thought could have been easily done away with are 1) the dance no. used as an introduction for Saroja (to me it looked more like a song inserted to showcase Yuvan) and 2) the song that appears just before the climax starts (sort of a motivational song). Overall, a good attempt by VP and I am sure his next venture “Goa” will be a worthy attempt too.

Public Enemies – I was mesmerized by Michael Mann’s directorial capabilities throughout the movie and of course, Johnny Depp’s effortless (seemingly) portrayal of a post great depression bank robber. I didn’t know who John Dillinger was till I read about this movie. But Mann has made an epic crime saga based of a relatively unknown story…When you walk out of the movie, you sort of feel bad for John Dillinger – It is weird, considering, he was the most notorious bank robber during his times. He had killed many people as well during this period. Doesn’t matter to Mr. Mann. You get to see a wide range emotions in JD’s life in these 120+ minutes movie. Love, Anger, Greed, Ruthlessness, Friendship, Pride, Confidence, etc. That to the viewer should highlight the challenging script the director had to tackle.

I recommend watching Public Enemies for 2 people – Mann and Depp!