More gorillas than any other Indian movie.

 Adipurush (2023) is, among other things, a devotional film inspired by the Ramayana, so my usual rules apply: I'm not going to evaluate the movie based on its theology, I just want to see if it tells an entertaining story.

Ravana (Saif Ali Khan) is the rakshasa king of Lanka.  He's a devoted follower of Shiva who managed to earn a boon from Brahma (Bijay Anand), who promised that he could not be slain by any god or demon, during the day or at night.  And I'm sure there are no loopholes there!  Ravana may be evil, but he has tremendous style, as demonstrated by the hymn to Shiva he performs with four statues of himself as backup singers.

Ravana is approached by his sister Shurpanakha (Tejaswini Pandit), who reveals that she lost her nose in an attempt to win the affections of righteous prince Raghava (Prabhas) by killing his wife Janaki (Kriti Sanon).  Shurpanakha praises Janaki's beauty, and encourages Ravana to abduct the woman, which would allow him to avenge his sister and gain the most beautiful wife in the world in the process.  Ravana decides that this is a great idea and will have no negative consequences.

Raghava is the rightful heir to the throne of Ayodha, but in order to fulfill a boon requested by his stepmother, he gave up the throne and now lives in a cave in the woods with Janaki and his brother Shesh (Sunny Singh.)  Raghava and Shesh are righteous warrior archers able to create supernatural effects with their arrows, so abducting Janaki is difficult, but Ravana is clever.  He disguises a demon as a golden deer in order to draw the brothers away, then disguises himself as a mendicant sage in order to lure Janaki out of the protective force field that surrounds the cave.  (Yeah, Shesh can make force fields with his arrows.  He's a really good archer.)  Ravana succeeds, and flies away with Janaki on his giant bat.

Raghava needs an army to rescue Janaki.  Shesh suggests raising an army in Ayodha, but Raghava feels that that would violate his vow, so instead they go searching for the vanara king Sugriva (Guarrav Walia).  The vanara hero and demigod Bajrang (Devdatta Nage) joins them on their quest, and they help Sugriva regain his throne in exchange for an army.

Meanwhile, in Lanka, Ravana does his best to win Janaki's heart, offering her power and jewels and . . . well, mostly power and jewels.  This doesn't work, and Janaki chooses instead to sit under a tree and wait for Raghava, because, as she carefully explains to Ravana, Raghava is coming for her, and no boon is going to save him.

The special effects in Adipurush range from okay to not very good, but that's not really a problem for me.  The problem is that there are so many special effects.  Most of the backgrounds are CGI.  Most of the characters are CGI.  Even Ravana has been turned into an overly muscled giant who occasionally has ten heads.  Almost everything is fake, so nothing really feels real, giving the whole movie a weightless quality that blunts the impact of the emotional scenes and the outrageous stunts.

Lanka itself is also a bit distracting, because the design is very clearly inspired by Mordor, complete with orcs.  Almost everything in Lanka is black, including Ravana's "Golden Palace," and while I respect Ravana's commitment to the bit, it does make the scenes there feel less real, and it blunts the impact of Bajrang burning everything down, since it's all black, so how can you tell?

I did like some aspects of the production design.  The vanara range from ordinary looking monkeys to gorillas to "Planet of the Apes" style nobility to Bajrang, who is the most human looking while also having the best tail, and Jambavan (Roopesh Jadhav) is a bear, as expected.

Saif Ali Khan, meanwhile, has figured out that Ravana is the best part, and he's clearly having a good time chewing all the scenery despite having to act through a fog of CGI.

Is Adipurush a good movie?  Probably not.  I found it to be a reasonably entertaining film, the big dumb action movie adaptation of the Ramayana, but it's clear form reviews and ticket sales that the Indian audience isn't interested in a big dumb action movie adaptation of the Ramayana, especially when they have so many other adaptations to choose from. 

Not being a jerk does make a big difference.

Ru-Ba-Ru (2008) is an example of a surprisingly popular subgenre in which a bad boyfriend or husband is given a magical second chance to live key points of their relationship over again, like A Christmas Carol but with more kissing. 

Nikhil (Randeep Hooda) and Tara (Shahana Goswami) live together in a surprisingly spacious apartment in Bangkok.  They're happy, mostly, but the cracks are starting to show.  Tara wants to get married, or at least wants to introduce Nikhil to her parents or meet his parents - some sign that they've got an actual future together.  

On the other hand, Nikhil has a specific future in mind, and he's entirely focused on making it happen.  He's preparing for a big presentation at work, which means that he's far too busy to go to India to meet her parents, or remember their anniversary, or buy her flowers when she has a play opening that night, or speak to her politely for more than two sentences in a row . . .  After a brief conversation with a wise and mysterious cab driver (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) Nikhil tries to make up with Tara, but he's still prickly and focused on his own work, and once Tara realizes that he's invited his clients to their romantic post-show dinner, she storms off, gets into a cab (driven by the same mysterious cab driver) and dies when another car hits the cab.

Nikhil is devastated.  He goes home and collapses, but in the morning he wakes up with Tara next to him.  She's fine, and Nikhil quickly realizes that he has a literal second chance, and has a whole day to live over again.  But while things can change, events seem to fall into the same pattern; Tara doesn't burn her arm while making Nikhil a coffee, but she does burn her arm while ironing his shirt.  The mysterious cab driver advises him to just spend time with Tara and make her happy, so he tries.  He takes her to meet his mother (Rati Agnihotri), mending that broken relationship in the process.  He focuses on Tara's needs rather than his presentation.  He arrives on time to the play and actually pays attention.  And at the end of the evening, he gets in the cab.

Ru-Ba-Ru is tightly focused on the central story, without any of the branching subplots Bollywood movies like to indulge in.  However, there's not much top that main plot; the movie is less than two hours long, and it still feels padded in places.  

The real problem, though, is Nikhil.  He's self-centered, controlling, and tries to present every one of his mistakes as Tara's fault.  he's a walking collection of red flags, and while he does improve when given his second chance, he's still loving and attentive in a sort of controlling way, which makes it really hard to root for him.  On the other hand, he does make the right choice at the end, and he does so without expecting a happy ending.

What I like about the movie is that there's no attempt at an explanation for the repeated day.  The closest we get is the cab driver explaining that his job is to help those who have lost their way find their destination.  Is the cab driver actually Death?  Was Nikhil such a bad boyfriend that it broke the space time continuum?  It is a mystery.

It's the Village of People Who Don't Ask Follow Up Questions!

Superheroes are associated with cities; Superman protects Metropolis, Batman lurks in Gotham, and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends hang out in New York City.  In India, though, things are different.  Sure, Krrish lives in Mumbai, but many of India's cinematic superheroes are rural, protecting India's wide open spaces.  And in Veeran (2023), the hero finds plenty of danger and adventure while confined to a single village.

When he was fifteen years old, Kumaran (Hiphop Tamizha Adhi) was struck by lightning and fell into a coma, so he was sent to Singapore to recover.  Fourteen years later, he returns to his native village of Veeranor and reunites with his childhood friends Sakkarai (Sassi Selvaraj) and Selvi (Athira Raj), along with his own skeptical father (Jeeva Ravi.)  Sakkarai assists his grandfather, who is both the village barber and the priest who maintains the shrine of local deity Veeran, though most of the villagers are completely indifferent.  Selvi, meanwhile, is about to enter an arranged marriage with an older man who doubles as comic relief (Muruganandum), though her family are fine with her hanging out with Kumaran as long as she's home to perform the necessary rituals.

The village is part of an experimental project by the JACL Corporation to produce power by firing lasers through a glass tube, but the planned route runs right through Veeran's shrine, and the priest absolutely refuses to let it be torn down. It's a technology that was designed to be used in rural areas, because if the tube loses containment it could lead to an explosion that wipes out all life along the entire line.  That's why Kumaran is here; he's been having visions of the village wiped out in a blue mushroom cloud.

It's not just the visions, though.  The lightning strike gave Kumaran a suite of low key super powers.  He can throw lightning bolts that are only powerful enough to knock people around rather than stop their hearts, control minds for ninety seconds at a time (though overuse of this ability hurts him and can lead to unconsciousness), and also has the uncanny power to befriend horses.  For reasons.  It's probably an extension of the mind control.

Thanks to his visions, Kumaran knows that JACL is up to something evil, so his plan is to disguise himself as the god Veeran in order to thwart them.  JACL doesn't appreciate the interference, and corporate bully Dhruv (R. Badree) to deal with him, later followed by Dhruv's brother Sarath (Vinay Rai), an evil scientist with a specialized poison that makes people explode within two minutes.  

Kumaran-as-Veeran is a superhero, but he's no Superman.  he's got a loosely thematic suite of abilities with some tight limits; the lightning can knock people around but isn't going to end the fight immediately, his mind control doesn't last long and can hurt him, he needs to be able to snap use any of his powers, and he has to wear a copper bracelet given to him by Sakkarai's grandfather or he'll lose control of his powers.  And all of those limitations factor into the plot.  The scope of Veeran is smaller than a lot of superhero movies.

But while the scope is smaller, the stakes are still high.  Sure, Veeran is fighting to protect one village, but the village is full of people, and they matter.  The restricted setting means that we get to meet most of them and see that they matter.  The plot doesn't have to involve collapsing multiverses to be meaningful.

Veeran is not a perfect superhero movie; I don't think we ever find out exactly what the evil plot is, and there's a lot of comic relief here that just doesn't translate well.  Still, the leads are engaging, the villains are definitely villainous, and the hero has to struggle to save the day, with a lot of help from his horse.  It's refreshingly grounded without trying to be gritty.

(An evil power company called JACL and run by a merciless scientist?  That's got to be a stealth Shaktimaan reference, right?  It's not just me?)

Shah Rukh Week: Swades

Like many of Shah Rukh Khan's earlier films, Swades (2004) casts him as an NRI, a Non-Resident Indian, who returns to India for love and winds up transformed, both by the country and the aforementioned love.  It's a common trope in Indian cinema, practically a cliche, but in the right hands a cliched plot can still turn into something magical.

NASA engineer Mohan Barghava (Shah Rukh Khan) has a great job, a big house, good friends, and one regret: he's lost touch with Kaveri Amma (Kishori Ballal), his former nanny whom he thinks of as a second mother.  Mohan was studying in America when his parents died, and he wasn't in a position to take care of her.  They sent letters, but eventually the letters slowed and then stopped, and the last thing Mohan heard was that she had gone to live in a retirement home.

The good news is that his current project, a satellite designed to monitor global precipitation levels, has finished Phase 1, and his friend Vinod (Rahul Vorha) suggests he takes a couple of weeks off to find Kaveri and convince her to come to America.  Mohan travels to Delhi, visits the retirement home, and discovers that Kaveri has gone to a village in Uttar Pradesh called Charanpur.  

Mohan borrows an RV and sets off for the village.  After a travel montage and the help of a wandering holy man (Makrand Deshpande) he arrives at the village and has a tearful reunion with Kaveri.  She is staying with Gita (Gayatri Joshi), local school teacher and Mohan's childhood friend, and Gita's young brother Chiku (Smith Seth.)  The three have formed a happy family unit, and that is a problem for Mohan, because he still plans to bring his surrogate mother home with him, but it's clear that Gita is never going to give her up.

Kaveri is definitely not going to leave until Gita is settled in life, and she has two problems: it's next to impossible to arrange a marriage for her when she's not willing to give up her job after getting married, and the school is in danger of losing its building if she can't increase the number of students enrolled.  Mohan leaves Kaveri to handle the marriage side of things, and he goes around the village trying to convince parents to send their children to school.  And suddenly things start to get complicated.  the parents all have different reasons; some think their children are better off just learning the family trade, some feel they can't afford it or worry that their children won't fit in because of caste differences, and some just don't feel it's worthwhile educating girls when they should be learning how to run a household.  Mohan listens, and pleads his case, and he has some success.

There's a thread running through a lot of older Shah Rukh movies where his character winds up staying with the extended family of his love interest, usually under false pretenses, and he winds up making everybody's lives better, almost by accident.  That's sort of what happens here, but with the village taking the place of Amrish Puri and the assorted aunts and uncles.  Mohan does increase enrollment, and he at least challenges caste barriers during a wonderful and surprisingly low key dance number, but at the same time he's putting down roots, making friends, and starting to see the struggles of the people around him.

After meeting a destitute farmer in a neighboring village, Mohan decides that he needs to do something tangible to help the people before he leaves.  The electricity supply in the village is unreliable, with frequent blackouts, and the government is always promising that the problem will be fixed in a month or so but it never is.  However, there's water flowing from the mountain nearby, so Mohan decides to build a small hydroelectric plant.

Meanwhile, he's been growing closer and closer to Gita, and she finally, quietly, admits that she loves him.  The early bickering is fun, but the relationship that develops is simple and sweet, based on mutual respect and support.  It's also pretty much doomed, because Gita will never leave India, and Mohan has to return to America.  Doesn't he?

The plot of Swades is not that far from typical masala fare; it's surprisingly close to Khan's 1996 film English Babu Desi Mem, for instance.  The tone is wildly different, though.  Swades is more grounded, rooted in simple village life.  The emotions are still huge, but the characters don't have an army of backup dancers to help express them.

Given the more grounded tone of the film you might think that Khan would deliver a more subdued and naturalistic performance, but he Shah Rukhs the heck out of this movie, with plenty of crying, standing with arms outstretched, all of his other tics.  And it works beautifully.  Without the glitz and glamor, Khan feels sincere, and this is a movie that thrives on sincerity.  Perhaps the most pivotal moment in Mohan's character development involves drinking a glass of water, and Khan sells it beautifully.

Swades is a polished jewel of a movie, with a simple story driven by strong performances and quiet moments, lifted up by A. R. Rahman's magnificent score.

And normally that is where I would end the review, but there is a coda, and it is bonkers.  In 2022's superhero epic Brahmastra: Part One, Khan appears as Mohan Bhargav, respected scientist and secret super hero who wields the power of the Vanastra.  Mohan used to work for NASA, and his Mumbai apartment is filled with space memorabilia.  He's clearly modeled on the Mohan from Swades, and writer-director Ayan Mukherji (who started his career as an assistant director for Swades) has confirmed that it's supposed to be the same character.

It makes a kind of sense, I guess?  Brahmastra is anything but low key, but both movies are ultimately about learning to love the people around you, and letting that love drive you to make the world a better place.  Still, I did not expect Swades to retroactively become a superhero origin story.

Saintly is as saintly does.

 Enthada Saji (2023) is a devotional film, which means that my usual rule for devotional films applies: treat the movie as a movie, rather than as a religious tract.  I'm looking at storytelling rather than theology, in other words.  I will say that there's a lot more whimsy than I'm used to seeing in this kind of movie, though.

Sajimol (Nivetha Thomas) could use a miracle.  She was engaged years ago, but the engagement was broken off.  This means that the people in her village look down on her as a spinster, but the local marriage market treats her as a divorced woman, meaning she's unlikely to find a suitable groom.  She's a bit sensitive about the topic, and will occasionally chase away busybodies who make snide comments.  

Sajimol doesn't really do much anymore; she sleeps in and hangs around the house, annoying her long suffering parents.  She does visit the local chapel often, though, telling the icon of Saint Rocky (known elsewhere as Saint Roch.)  And then one day the saint (Kunchacko Boban) starts talking back.  They chat about Sajimol's life and about St. Rocky's duties as a saint.  After a few meetings, Sajimol asks Rocky to appear as himself, and he promises to do so if she attends Mass.

Sajimol has her miracle, but it's a very low key miracle.  Rocky may be a saint, but mostly he's her friend.  yes, he encourages her to go to Mass and read the Bible, but he also encourages her to clean up after herself, to find a job, and to help people when she can.  And she does!  She starts a small business selling painted bottles, and she assists Rocky with answering prayers, directly helping people with her human resources rather than waiting for miracles.  Suddenly her parents are a lot happier, as well.  Time for a complication.

Roy (Jayasurya) is Sajimol's childhood friend and first crush, back in town on business.  He's quite active in the church choir, and after working together on the upcoming Easter pageant Sajomol and Roy become quite close.  With Rocky's help Sajimol manages to confess her feelings, and the two become engaged.  There's still a problem, as Roy's father (Prem Prakash) wants a bride who will bring a larger dowry, but Rocky promises that it will all work out, and that he will be there to help.

And then Rocky's statue is stolen from the chapel.  after a bit of fuss the church decides to just get a new one, but the new statue doesn't talk to Sajimol.  She's lost her miracle, but worse, she's lost her friend.  So the movie shifts from low key devotional to low key mystery, as Sajimol and some of the people she's helped search for the icon, along with the dog she quietly adopted at the beginning of the movie.  Will they succeed?  Well, obviously.  But valuable life lessons will be learned in the process.

Enthada Saji is surprisingly laid back for a devotional movie.  It's clearly informed by religion, with Sajimol finding clues to the missing saint in scraps of scripture she finds lying around her room and the chapel, but the whole thing plays out like a quirky bit of magic realism.  It's a gentle movie, the leads are charming, and the underlying message is to be nice to people, including yourself. 

Our mission statement.

 

Something to savor.

Daawat-e-Ishq (2014) has a title which translates roughly as "Feast of Love," and that's what it sets out to deliver, a scrumptious little cinematic morsel of romance, seasoned with just a pinch of social commentary.  Of course, it's really hard to get this kind of recipe just right, and you have to try it to see if it works.

Gulrez "Gullu" Qadir (Parineeti Chopra) is tired.  Her father Abdul (Anupam Kher) has been searching for a suitable groom for her, but all of the grooms' families have asked for dowry, and more dowry than they can afford.  Gullu works at a shoe store at the mall, and Abdul is an honest court clerk, so they literally can't afford a good match.  Gullu is not shy about speaking her mind, so the families never come around twice.

Then Gullu meets Amjad (Karan Wahl), and suddenly things are looking up.  He's handsome, charming, speaks excellent English, and has a good job lined up in Kalamazoo.  Better yet, he likes Gullu for Gullu.  After dating for a month, they decide to talk to their respective parents, and when the families get together Amjad's parents make it clear that they do not want dowry . . . . They just want Help."  Financial help, far more than the Qadirs could afford.  Gullu is furious and heartbroken and she makes her feelings very clear.

 And then Gullu has an idea, inspired by a recent high profile court case.  She will assume a false identity, go to another city, and place an ad on a matrimonial website.  Then she'll pick the family that asks for the biggest dowry, arrange a quick (and easily annulled) marriage, and threaten to charge them under Article 498-A, which prohibits asking for or accepting dowry, unless they agree to pay up.  It take s awhile, but she manages to convince Abdul to join in the scheme, and father and daughter are off to Lucknow.

And that's where they run into trouble.  In this case, trouble is named Taru (Aditya Roy Kapur.) Taru own a restaurant in town, and his very proud and traditional parents ask for a large dowry, which makes him the designated target.  Abdul insists that the wedding will be small and held in two days. Taru asks for three, because he wants to spend some time getting to know his future bride, and Gullu agrees against her better judgement.

The problem is that Taru is really great.  he's handsome with a sort of swaggering charm, yes, but he's also honest, he's kind to her father, he feeds orphans at the restaurant, and he just  wants an honest connection, a wife who will love him, even if it's only just a little.  At the end of the three days Taru takes Gullu aside and gives her a suitcase full of money, enough to cover the asked for dowry; he doesn't want to be bought, but he also doesn't want to hurt his father.  

Gullu is stuck. She does love him, more than a little, but she's been lying, and she doesn't think she can be forgiven, so she carries through with the plan, fake-marrying Taru, absconding on the wedding night, then blackmailing the family through a police intermediary the next day.  Then it's back to Hyderabad and a lifetime of regret.  She can't even enjoy food anymore because nobody cooks it as well as Taru.

Meanwhile, Taru is searching for the woman who betrayed him, and finds a clue which sends him to Hyderabad.  Will he find her?  Will he forgive her?  Obviously, because this is a romantic comedy first and foremost.  And it seems a bit easy, since Gullu did a genuinely terrible thing, no matter how sympathetic her motivation was.  On the other hand, Bollywood movies are filled with male con artists who are forgiven just as easily, so turnabout is fair play.  

The dowry system is an ongoing problem in parts of India, and while Daawat-e-Ishq takes a firm stance on the issue (dowry is bad) dowry is a plot point here, a means to bring Gullu and Taru together and then drive them apart.  This is a movie about love, and a movie about food, and while it's not remotely realistic it is delectable.  It's too sweet to be regular moviegoing fare, but it makes a lovely treat.