Tag Archives: Movie Review

Movie Review: Tiku Weds Sheru (2023)

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1 Star (out of 4)

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Tiku Weds Sheru is a disjointed collection of scenes attempting to serve as a skewering of Hindi-film culture and the obstacles put in the way of outsiders. As a satire, it falls flat.

Sheru (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is a part-time background actor who aspires to stardom. He blew a bunch of money to make an independent movie that never happened, and his main job as a pimp doesn’t pay enough to get him out of debt. Sheru jumps at the chance to marry a woman whose family offers a lot of money to any suitor willing to take on an “ill-tempered” bride.

The only time the bride in question, Tiku (newcomer Avneet Kaur), shows her temper is when she realizes her family is trying to marry her to a man almost 30 years her senior. (Kaur is 21, Siddiqui is 49.) The price she pays for objecting is to be slapped by her brother and beaten with a belt. She agrees to the marriage in order to get away from her abusive family and to be closer to her Mumbai-based boyfriend.

The boyfriend bails when Tiku learns that she’s pregnant. Her attempt to run away results in Sheru slapping her as well before deciding to get out of the pimping business and raise Tiku’s baby as his own.

What kind of straitlaced job does Sheru get instead? Drug dealing. All the while, he lies to Tiku and pretends to be a film financier who’s temporarily a little short on cash.

There’s probably an internal logic to why the characters act the way they do and why certain actions follow one another, but only writer-director Sai Kabir understands what that internal logic is.* This was a problem with his 2014 film Revolver Rani, too. Kabir doesn’t give his audience a reason to get invested in his characters, and there’s no real moral to the story. Is this satire or just messy people in a messy situation doing messy things?

Some of the disjointedness comes from what is likely a case of reverse engineering on Kabir’s part. It feels as though he wanted to include certain scenes in the movie and came up with the narrative justification for them later, regardless if that justification makes sense. Take for example the climax, in which Sheru appears in drag to rescue Tiku during a stage performance. Sheru’s convoluted explanation for his costume is that a certain gay politician (who hit on Sheru earlier) will be in attendance, so naturally he’d rather watch men perform, hence Sheru must appear in drag in order to get the politician’s attention. Huh?

Even individual scenes are choppy and hard to follow. The frequent, fast edits during a Latin dance number are so disorienting that the scene should’ve been left out of the movie entirely.

Tiku Weds Sheru is the first production by Manikarnika Films, the company established by Kangana Ranaut (who starred in Kabir’s Revolver Rani). Ranaut has often touted her outsider status within the Hindi-film industry, so Tiku Weds Sheru is certainly supposed to offer some kind of critique of the industry. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything coherent to say.

*If this article at Bollywood Hungama is to be believed, Sai Kabir may not be solely responsible for Tiku Weds Sheru‘s quality problems. Multiple sources told Bollywood Hungama that Kangana Ranaut rewrote and reorganized much of the screenplay, resulting in a film that Kabir wasn’t happy with. This would not be the first time Ranaut interfered with her director.

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Movie Review: Faraaz (2022)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Director Hansal Mehta’s engaging film Faraaz presents a straightforward depiction of the horrific terrorist attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2016, with a special focus on one young man who exhibited moral courage in the face of grave danger.

Though it is inspired by a true event and based more specifically on the book Holey Artisan: A Journalistic Investigation by Nuruzzaman Labu, Mehta and his screenwriters acknowledge taking liberties with some of the details in crafting their narrative. This doesn’t discredit the story in any way, just clarifies why some of the details in the attack’s Wikipedia page don’t line up with the events in the film.

The film’s early scenes bounce between six young men as they prepare to head to Holey Artisan Bakery on a fateful July day. In one crowded apartment, five guys in their late teens and early twenties bicker over breakfast. Rajeev (Godaan Kumar) — an older man who is ostensibly in charge — chides the five for their immaturity before loading them into a school transport van and dropping them off near the bakery. It’s impossible to miss Mehta’s point that these guys are barely adults. Only when they slit the throat of a security guard does it confirm that they are terrorists.

In a mansion across town, Faraaz Hossein (Zahan Kapoor) and his mother Simeen (Juhi Babbar) argue over her insistence that he head to Stanford University for graduate school instead of starting his career in Dhaka. A filmmaker with less faith in his audience would have Faraaz storm out of the house after the argument, manufacturing emotions later when mother and son realize that their last conversation was a fight. In this version, mother and son makeup in the hallway on his way to join friends at the bakery. She tells him she wants him to be happy, and he says he’ll make her proud.

The siege of the bakery is terrifying and gory, with the five men from the apartment shooting patrons and employees who are obviously foreign first, then testing those who remain to identify and spare those who are Bangladeshi Muslims. Nibras (Aditya Rawal) leads the terrorists inside the bakery. (Their handler Rajeev is safely off-site, letting the young guys do his dirty work for him.)

Faraaz and Nibras recognize one another, having played football together while in university. This connection proves a useful distraction, as one of the women Faraaz is with is Hindu. She’s allowed to sit with him and their other friend without having to pass the religious test.

Mehta is not exactly sympathetic to the local police who try to mount a response to the hostage situation. They’re portrayed as overly aggressive despite their lack of protective gear and information about things as simple as the layout of the bakery.The SWAT team that eventually arrives is similarly ineffective.

As the police fumble their response on the outside, tension builds in the bakery because no one understands what the terrorists want. They don’t make any demands or offer any conditions for the hostages’ release. Everyone is forced to sit and wait, with no end in sight. Faraaz’s mother discovers that her political connections can’t help when her son is trapped by people for whom violence is the only point.

The choice to make Faraaz the title character is interesting. He’s not superhero material, and Kapoor spends most of his performance looking like he’s on the verge of tears. But Faraaz is loyal, brave, and protective of his friends. He demonstrates a kind of low-key heroism that all of us can hope to emulate.

While effective at recreating the events of the attack, Faraaz is almost too subtle in its execution. It lacks a strong narrative point of view, relying on the circumstances to keep the audience invested in the characters. The performances and cinematography are competent. Mehta’s trust in his audience to understand why the story is important is commendable, but his approach makes the film feel overly educational.

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Movie Review: Gumraah (2023)

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1 Star (out of 4)

Gumraah is what happens when filmmakers decide that continuity is too much work.

Aditya Roy Kapur plays both Arjun and Sooraj, a pair of lookalikes who are accused of murder. Only one of them is the killer, and it’s up to the police to figure out which one of them it is.

The story starts promisingly. We see the murder of a 30-something tech guy named Aakash (Aditya Lal) and even get a glimpse of the killer. Special investigator Shivani Mathur (Mrunal Thakur) is assigned to the case, to the annoyance of the local police department. When Shivani finds a photo that clearly shows the killer’s face as he leaves Aakash’s bungalow, Assistant Commissioner of Police Dhiru Yadav is overjoyed. The killer is Arjun Sehgal (Kapur), an architect Dhiru has had a personal grudge against for years. It seems like an open-and-shut case until Sooraj Rana (also Kapur) is brought in for drunk driving, and the cops realize there’s no way to tell Sooraj and Arjun apart.

This is a good setup, with the lookalikes and their unknown connection to the dead man and to each other. Plus there’s the tension in the police station between Shivani and Dhiru, not to mention Dhiru’s vendetta against one of the suspects. Can’t wait to see what the cops uncover during their investigation, right?

Wrong. The words “3 Months Earlier” appear on screen, and we get flashbacks to Arjun romancing a woman named Jahnvi (Vedika Pinto) and Sooraj gambling, drinking, and partying with white women (the surest sign that he’s a degenerate).

This cut to the past feels so jarring because it’s not clear who is flashing back. It doesn’t occur because one of the characters is reminiscing or explaining information to the police. It happens because it’s the simplest way for director Vardhan Ketkar (from a screenplay by Aseem Arora and Magizh Thirumeni) to do character establishment without keeping track of details that might conflict with the present-day storyline.

It’s extra lazy because the police are going to interrogate both of the suspects about alibis and motives, and they’re going to interview witnesses and acquaintances of those involved in the crime. All of this background information could have been revealed organically through the course of the police investigation.

Relying on clunky flashbacks does two things. It centers the story on Arjun and Sooraj — and more specifically on the actor playing them. The characters themselves are not that interesting, and Kapur doesn’t do anything in his performance to differentiate them. Second, it neuters the impact the police officers — specifically Shivani — have on the story. This is especially weird because the film is edited to give Shivani a lot of stone-faced reaction shots, visually indicating that she’s supposed to play a more important role in the story than she actually does. She can hardly be considered a co-lead, despite appearing on the film’s poster.

Even when the police investigation takes center stage, the story isn’t allowed to develop organically. Supporting characters are conjured solely to advance the plot, disappearing into the ether once they’ve outlived their convenience. Mystery fans will be disappointed because all the truly important information is saved for a last-minute revelation, meaning there’s no point in trying to guess who the killer is beforehand. With such awful pacing, Gumraah‘s resolution feels manufactured, not inevitable.

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Movie Review: Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (2023)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai on Zee5
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Though we may not consciously be aware of it, legal dramas often rely on shorthand that is readily understood by people who live within the legal system depicted, but which may not be so accessible to people who live outside it. That’s not a flaw of these works of fiction, but an acknowledgement that they may work better for some audiences than others.

That’s my issue with Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (referred to by its nickname Bandaa henceforth). Manoj Bajpayee gives another sterling performance, but the story is a little confusing to those who don’t understand the legal terms and references used in the film.

Set in 2013 in Jodhpur, the courtroom drama focuses on a case in which a powerful spiritual leader is accused of molesting a 16-year-old girl. The date of the crime is significant because it happens a year after the passing of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act, commonly known by the acronym POCSO. The Act widened the ranged of prosecutable offenses that could fall under the umbrella of abuse from a previously narrow definition with lots of loopholes.

With the law being relatively new — and with such an influential, well-funded defendant — the girl’s family needs an attorney who understands POCSO law and is impervious to bribery. That man is P. C. Solanki (Manoj Bajpayee). Despite threats to him and his family and devious legal tactics from the opposition, Solanki persists in pursuing justice for the wronged girl.

Bandaa is a straightforward courtroom drama that focuses on the procedural details of the case. It’s an interesting introduction to the Indian legal system. But without full context, the stakes don’t feel as high as they might to someone more familiar with the system. There is a lot of wrangling over properly-filed paperwork and charges that, while effective in showing Solanki’s ability to think on the fly, isn’t in itself especially riveting.

Most problematic is the fact that the characters use the acronym POCSO from very early in the story, but it’s not explained until almost 45 minutes in. Thanks to Bandaa being a streaming-exclusive release, I was able to pause the film and look up the acronym on Wikipedia. It was convenient, but not conducive to getting immersed in the flow of the story.

Again, this will likely not be a problem for the majority of the intended audience, who are already familiar with the Indian legal system. However, based on my own level of familiarity, it prevented an obstacle to my full investment.

Manoj Bajpayee is wonderful as Solanki. The easy way in which he thwarts his opponents inside the courtroom is offset by the vigilance he must maintain outside of it due to the defendant’s dangerous followers.

As much fun as it is to watch Bajpayee command the screen, the girl at the center of the case — Nu (Adrija Sinha) — deserves a more prominent place in the story. Little time is spent on her struggles, not just with the dangers of pursuing the court case but the emotional fallout from the assault. She shows up periodically so that Solanki can tell her to be strong — which is a harder task than the film makes it seem.

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Movie Review: Kathal – A Jackfruit Mystery (2023)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Kathal on Netflix

A young police inspector in a small town navigates challenges in her professional and personal life in the comedy Kathal: A Jackfruit Mystery. Writer-director Yashowardhan Mishra gets a lot right in his feature debut, even though the story loses focus as it goes on.

Sanya Malhotra plays Mahima Basor, a police inspector in the small town of Moba. She’s achieved a lot in her short career and her superiors are pleased with her work, but some of the male constables who work under her quietly resent taking orders from a woman.

Further complicating matters is that one of those constables is her boyfriend, Saurabh Dwivedi (Anant Joshi). He supports Mahima’s career success, but his dad refuses to let them marry until Saurabh is promoted to inspector, too.

Fresh off Mahima’s arrest of a notorious gangster, she is assigned an even more important case — find the thief who stole two jackfruits off the tree in politician Munnalal Pateria’s (Vijay Raaz) garden. These aren’t just any jackfruits. They’re a special Uncle Hong variety that pickles exceptionally well.

Everyone except Pateria realizes what a ridiculous misuse of police resources this endeavor is. It’s funny to watch Mahima roll her eyes in the background as the investigation stirs up lingering resentments between Pateria and his son-in-law, which gets everyone else in the family involved.

This is when the story is at its best — as an interpersonal comedy that happens at an intimate scale, in a town small enough where everyone knows each other’s business. For example, no detail of the theft is too small for enthusiastic local reporter Anuj (Rajpal Yadav), who has little other news to cover.

Kathal loses its way when it expands the story beyond Moba’s borders into other villages, and the investigation uncovers more serious crimes. Pateria’s family recedes in importance, which is a shame because the characters and their influence over the town make the movie a lot of fun.

The plot gets diluted as the scope broadens. While the crime at the heart of the jackfruit case is trivial, what it reveals about power and police accountability is not. Same goes for the conflict that arises within Mahima’s relationship with Saurabh.

The introduction of weightier material doesn’t make Kathal any more important of a film. It was important already. Kathal is very close to being a very good movie. But the escalation in its latter stages overextends the runtime and distracts from the characters and a location that made up such an enjoyable, well-defined world.

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Movie Review: Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

I’m skeptical about any Luv Ranjan project. The filmmaker owes his career to the unfortunate box office success of sexist comedies like 2015’s deplorable Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2. So I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar.

Ranjan’s objective with Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar (TJMM, henceforth) is simple: show sexy people having a good time in exotic locations accompanied by a catchy soundtrack with some big dance numbers. To that end, it’s mission accomplished.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Mickey Arora, son of a wealthy, tight-knit family. In addition to helping run one of the family’s businesses — how his periodic strolling through an auto showroom helps is anyone’s guess — Mickey runs a secret side operation orchestrating breakups. He and his buddy Manu (Anubhav Singh Bassi) stage elaborate schemes on behalf of lovers who want to ditch their partners with minimal hard feelings or reputational damage.

While accompanying Manu on a trip to Spain to celebrate his engagement to Kinchi (Monica Chaudhary), Mickey falls for Kinchi’s gorgeous best friend Tinni (Shraddha Kapoor). Despite her reservations about dating a guy who’s never had to work for a boss who isn’t also his dad, Tinni and Mickey grow closer while frolicking in swimwear and cavorting about town. Both Kapoors look incredibly fit in this film, and their dance numbers are a lot of fun.

Mickey and Tinni return to Delhi and make things official, first by introducing Tinni to Mickey’s family. The Arora’s have no chill and quickly monopolize all of the couple’s time. This isn’t a problem for Mickey, but it is for Tinni. She places a call to the breakup expert — who uses a modulator to disguise his voice — and asks for help ending her relationship with Mickey.

Only in the movies would Mickey not immediately recognize his own girlfriend’s voice. More movie cliches follow once Mickey figures things out, including his professional instructions for Tinni to make Mickey jealous with a fake ex-boyfriend and to try to make Mickey cheat with her fake beautiful friend. (The fake ex and the fake friend are played by Kartik Aaryan and Nushrratt Bharuccha, respectively, who both starred in Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2).

Much of the conflict in TJMM could have been avoided had the characters simply talked to one another, but at least they are motivated by doing what they believe the other one wants. That fits with Mickey’s business ethos of trying to minimize the emotional fallout from breakups, but the couple is slow to realize that they are really only punishing themselves by not addressing their issues directly. The film is thoughtful about the way the borders of a romantic relationship extend out to encompass the families of the two people involved.

That said, TJMM is inherently conservative and too centered on Mickey. We see details of Tinni’s life only as they relate to Mickey. His family gets ample screentime, but we only get brief glimpses of Tinni’s family. While the two male friends regularly talk about their romantic relationships with one another, Tinni and Kinchi never do.

In the course of running his breakup business, Mickey spouts off a bunch of simplistic maxims about the behavior patterns of men and women that sound old-fashioned and a bit sexist. There’s also a moment where Mickey vows to get revenge on Tinni for lying to him — an unfortunate callback to the cruel revenge plots that make up the second half of Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2.

Yet despite it faults, TJMM mostly has its heart in the right place. The characters really do try to do right by one another, even when their efforts are misguided. And the film hits all the right notes for the kind of upbeat, escapist fantasy it aspires to be.

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Movie Review: What’s Love Got to Do with It? (2022)

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1.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy/Rent What’s Love Got to Do with It? at Amazon

The romantic drama What’s Love Got to Do with It? is unconvincing. The characters seem like they popped into existence just before the events of the movie, and they don’t act like real people.

Lily James stars as “award-winning documentary filmmaker” Zoe. Shazad Latif plays her lifelong pal Kaz, who’s a successful doctor. Zoe’s mom Cath (Emma Thompson) still lives next door to Kaz’s family, and the treehouse where Zoe and Kaz played as kids still sits in the Khan family’s backyard.

Cath is cringe personified, and not in an amusing way. She emerges from the Khans’ house after attending Kaz’s brother’s wedding and declares, “Wasn’t it so wonderfully exotic?” Keep in mind that Cath has known the Khans for at least two decades and has attended multiple family weddings and holiday parties thrown by her Muslim neighbors.

The “exotic” remark is thankfully a one-off, but Kaz has to explain to Cath and Zoe other racist indignities experienced by Pakistani-Brits that his lifelong white neighbors should know by now. It is a huge missed opportunity (and a crime against cinema, frankly) that legendary actors Emma Thompson and Shabana Azmi — who plays Kaz’s mother Aisha — never share a meaningful scene together, which could have provided a chance to address cultural and social issues in a more organic fashion.

Zoe and Kaz are both in their early thirties, and while Zoe is committed to staying single, Kaz is ready to settle down. Having failed to find a girlfriend on his own, he asks his parents to find him a bride via a matchmaker. Zoe pressures Kaz into letting her film the experience for a documentary about arranged marriage tentatively titled “Love Contractually.”

Even this move to film Kaz’s matchmaking process is exotifying. Would Zoe and the bros at the production house providing the funding find white people filling out eHarmony profiles or going on speed dates prestige documentary material? Unlikely, yet that’s what the early stages of Kaz’s process amount to. At best, it’s reality show fodder — and even then they’d have to compete with Indian Matchmaking.

When Kaz fails to click with any British women, he is introduced via Skype to a law student in Lahore named Maymouna (Sajal Aly, who played Sridevi’s stepdaughter in 2017’s Mom). Maymouna is utterly disinterested, but Kaz thinks she’s the one — mostly because she’s 22 and pretty. The Khans, Zoe, and her mom head to Lahore for the nuptials.

The movie takes the long way round to the inevitable conclusion that Kaz and Zoe are the ones who should be together. The meandering path involves a subplot where Zoe dates her mom’s dog’s veterinarian James (Oliver Chris), who she finds underwhelming even though he’s perfectly nice and cute. Zoe makes some equally questionable choices about her film that she springs on Kaz and his family without warning during a screening party. Why she would publicly ambush people she’s known and cared about her whole life is baffling.

For all Kaz’s complaints about not having chemistry with any of the women he’s met, he and Zoe have as much fizz as two-liter bottle of soda that’s been open for a week. Latif’s performance lacks energy, and James is undermined by a character who’s confoundingly written. What’s Love Got to Do with It? is as flat as its central romance.

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Movie Review: Polite Society (2023)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Polite Society is a raucous good time. Stories about sisterhood should always have this much martial arts action.

British high school student Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) knows what she wants to be in life: a stuntwoman. She records her moves for her YouTube channel, shouting, “I am the fury!” in her garden while her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) holds the camera.

Lena’s future isn’t so clear. She dropped out of art school, and now she mopes around in bed until Ria literally drags her out of it.

The girls’ parents Fatima (Shobu Kapoor) and Raff (Jeff Mirza) are supportive of their oddball daughters, but the pressure from their Pakistani-British social circle is mounting. There are only so many ways to deflect thinly-veiled insults.

It’s a surprise when the middle class Khans are invited to an Eid celebration at the mansion of one of the wealthiest women in the group, Raheela Shah (Nimra Bucha). It’s even more of a surprise to Ria when Lena chats with Raheela’s handsome doctor son Salim (Akshay Khanna) and actually appears to be enjoying herself.

Ria is convinced that there’s something suspicious about the Shahs. Why else would Salim and his mom take an interest in artsy Lena? Ria enlists her hilarious friends/sidekicks Alba (Ella Bruccoleri) and Clara (Seraphina Beh) to find dirt on Salim, but their spying only drives a wedge between the sisters. Is it so wrong for Lena to be happy receiving attention from a rich hunk who’s looking to settle down?

Polite Society has so much going for it that it’s hard to know where to begin. What is undeniable is Priya Kansara’s magnetism as Ria. Her performance commands attention and rewards it with an absolute star-making turn. She’s funny, snarky, and charismatic, and a total pro at the action sequences as well.

The martial arts fight scenes in Polite Society are terrific, smoothly integrated into the plot but surprising all the same. Though the fights are used for comic effect, they are totally hardcore — a delightful subversion of gender tropes given that the fights take place mostly between women in women’s spaces (a girls high school, a widow’s mansion, Ria’s bedroom, etc.).

Ritu Arya’s Lena is quite the fighter, too, as is Nimra Bucha as Raheela. Fresh off her turn as the villain in the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, Bucha is proving to be the go-to intimidating South Asian mom of the moment. Arya plays off of Kansara beautifully, making the sisters’ relationship feel familiar and believable.

The Khan parents provide the moral center of the film in a subtle way. In contrast with Raheela’s eagerness to find a bride for Salim, the Khans are content to let their girls find their own way. While they are aware that marriage and family are a potential path to stability (and one that would make it easier for Fatima to socialize with the other moms), they aren’t pushy about it. Fatima encourages Lena to date Salim because it seems to make Lena happy. As long as the girls aren’t getting into serious trouble, their happiness is all that matters to their parents.

Filmmaker Nida Manzoor’s fresh screenplay and direction deftly mix social commentary with a lot of laughs — and plenty of flying kicks. Polite Society is a top-class effort from a young filmmaker to watch.

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Movie Review: Mrs Undercover (2023)

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0.5 Star (out of 4)

Watch Mrs Undercover on Zee5

The action comedy Mrs Undercover is agenda-driven, not story-driven or character-driven. It’s not even clear who the intended audience is for this film that wants to promote women’s empowerment but doesn’t treat the issue with any sophistication.

Instead of first introducing its main character, Durga (Radhika Apte) — a seemingly ordinary housewife — Mrs Undercover opens with the villain, Ajay (Sumeet Vyas): a serial killer who preys on strong, independent women. We hear him beat the feminist lawyer he has tricked into having a date with him before we watch him run over her repeatedly with his car.

This misstep immediately puts the focus on the man committing violence against women, and not the woman who will (ultimately) stand up to him. The very first woman we meet is a victim, and we witness her brutal death.

Ajay goes by the alias “The Common Man,” and he records his victims confessing their crimes against masculinity before murdering them. For some reason, literally everyone in India has their phone set to alert them when The Common Man posts a new video. Why? Who knows?

The special task force assigned to find The Common Man has one last chance to learn his identity. Turns out an undercover agent whose contact information was misplaced happens to live in Kolkata, The Common Man’s new hunting ground. That secret agent is Durga.

Durga married sexist, conservative Dev (Saheb Chatterjee) to establish her cover. But with no word from the special force in a decade, Durga went ahead and started a family. When task force chief Rangeela (Rajesh Sharma) assigns her to the case, she’s not willing to disrupt her family’s routine to do so.

Rangeela’s attempts to bring Durga back into the fold are the funniest part of Mrs Undercover. He surprises her by showing up in odd places wearing disguises that don’t fool anyone.

Sadly, that’s it as far as the laughs go. The dialogue is uninspired, as far as I could tell. Only the Hindi words are subtitled, with the rest reading “???Bengali.” The action scenes are forgettable, too.

That’s because the point of Mrs Undercover isn’t to entertain, but to educate. Somber piano music plays whenever characters launch into heavy-handed speeches about how housewives are special and should be treated with respect. Religious references abound, such as naming the main character Durga and lauding women for managing their households as though they have ten hands.

I’m not sure who writer-director Anushree Mehta is trying to persuade. It’s not like men who look down on women don’t realize they do so. Durga’s husband Dev isn’t a controlling jerk by accident. When Dev’s mother (played by Laboni Sarkar) tries to convince him to allow Durga more freedom, it’s as though Mom has only just realized that her married adult son with whom she lives is sexist.

The characters feel like they came into being just before the events of the film, to serve the purposes of the screenplay. This is especially true in the case of a woman who is one of The Common Man’s accomplices. Why would she agree to help a man who is literally murdering women for refusing to be subservient? We’ll never know, because Durga shoots her before she can explain herself.

Mrs Undercover opens the door to all kinds of feminist issues, only to abandon them or treat them in a simplistic way. Durga joins a Women’s Empowerment group at a local college, and most of the attendees express a desire to start their own businesses. The men running the group instead teach them a choreographed dance routine.

Because the film addresses issues at such a surface level, it doesn’t even realize that movie’s the ultimate message to women is that it isn’t enough to be “just a housewife.” Durga saves the day using skills she learned as a special agent, not abilities she picked up once she started her family. Were she to have succeeded using those skills, the movie might have made a point about all women’s work deserving respect.

The ending assumes that justice is best served via eye-for-an-eye physical retribution meted out individually. Even then, it’s up to women to do the dirty work themselves while men stand and watch. That’s not catharsis. It’s more forced labor for women that absolves men of the work of holding other men accountable. Who does Mrs Undercover think will find this satisfying?

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Movie Review: Joyland (2022)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Rent or buy Joyland at Amazon

A seemingly content family in Lahore disintegrates when they fall back into patriarchal patterns in the film Joyland — an ironic title if there ever was one.

Haider (Ali Junejo) and his wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) live with his elderly father (Salmaan Peerzada), Haider’s older brother Saleem (Sameer Sohail), Saleem’s wife Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani), and their four young daughters. Mumtaz is a talented makeup artist who works outside the home, while Haider cooks and helps with his nieces. It’s a slightly unconventional setup for this otherwise traditional family, but it works.

Everything changes when Haider’s friend finds him a job. Running the household is too much for Nucchi to manage alone, so Father decides that Mumtaz will quit her job and stay home. Mumtaz’s objections are ignored, and Haider is too timid to stand up to his dad.

The thing is, Haider’s new job isn’t exactly “respectable.” He’s a backup dancer in an erotic dance theater. He tells his dad that he’s the theater manager, but he’s honest with Mumtaz about what he does.

What Haider fails to tell his wife is that he’s infatuated with the starlet he dances behind — a transgender woman named Biba (Alina Khan). It’s not just that Biba is beautiful, but she has all of the self-respect and willpower that Haider lacks. She’s learned how to stand up for herself because no one else will. Her confidence — coupled with the freedom Haider experiences upon being liberated from his oppressive house — inspires him to act more boldly than he ever has, including starting an affair with Biba.

The fallout from Haider taking his new job is a mess of isolation, secrecy, conservative gender expectations, and unmet sexual needs for multiple members of the family. Trapped in the house, Mumtaz becomes all but invisible to everyone, including Haider. She goes through the motions of being excited when she finds out she’s pregnant with a boy — all of the accolades for said feat go to Haider — but she longs to escape.

No one in the family is happy, even with the household operating exactly the way Father wants it to. Rigid adherence to expectations makes everyone miserable when it requires erasing individual identities to do meet them. Biba is unique in asserting her own identity, but it comes at an enormous cost to her as well.

Saim Sadiq’s writing and directing of his first feature film are excellent, as is Joyland‘s talented cast. All the women in the ensemble are terrific at eliciting sympathy for their characters, particularly Rasti Farooq as Mumtaz. Ali Junejo’s job has an extra challenge because Haider is legitimately frustrating at times, but he’s a man ill-equipped to live as his authentic self within the confines of his family. No matter how exasperating his behavior, the root of everyone’s problems is a strict set of social norms that punishes individuality for no discernible benefit.

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