Tag Archives: Sheeba Chaddha

Movie Review: Songs of Paradise (2025)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Writer-director Danish Renzu’s love-letter to Kashmiri music history is vibrant and sweet. A charming cast recreates a world on the cusp of progress. Songs of Paradise is a delight.

Though not a biographical film, Renzu’s story is heavily inspired by the life of Raj Begum, Kashmir’s first female radio singer who died in 2016. Her achievements won her not just fame but also one of the Indian government’s highest civilian honors: the Padma Shree.

In Songs of Paradise, the character inspired by Raj Begum goes by the stage name Noor Begum (Soni Razdan). A framing device finds Noor in the modern day narrating her life to graduate student Rumi (Taaruk Raina), who’s writing a thesis on the history of popular music in Kashmir (and serving as an onscreen avatar for Renzu himself).

Before she started singing professionally in 1954, Noor Begum was simply Zeba Akhtar (Saba Azad). She grew up in Srinagar with her open-minded father (played by Bashir Lone) and conservative mother, Hameeda (Sheeba Chaddha).

Zeba earns money cleaning house for a music teacher, Master Ji (Shishir Sharma). Master Ji has no idea Zeba can sing, until he overhears her performing for a group of women at a family function. Recognizing her potential, Master Ji offers to train Zeba for free. He’s so impressed with her ability that he signs her up for the local radio station’s annual singing contest — something no other woman has done before.

“Freedom and progress were in the air,” the film notes. But not everyone is ready for change — not even Zeba herself. She hides her music lessons from her traditional mother under the guise of extra work hours. While Zeba enjoys her studies, she has no ambitions for them to lead to anything else. But she competes in the contest and wins decisively.

Her victory comes with a new job, performing songs live on the radio with the in-house band. Zeba’s presence causes upheaval in the male-dominated space, but soon everyone realizes the boost her heavenly voice gives the whole station. In trying to make the situation more equitable for her, Zeba champions change that makes things fairer for everyone, such as demanding grumpy station owner Mr. Kaul (Armaan Khera) read the names of every participating musician after every broadcast.

Zeba is interesting because she’s not trying to blaze a trail. Master Ji and her father want her to succeed because they care for her, and the station’s staff lyricist Azaad (Zain Khan Durrani) wants Kashmir to catch up with Bombay’s thriving film-music industry. But there’s a toll paid by trailblazers and those around them, and Zeba seems to know this. That’s the main reason she adopts the stage name Noor Begum. Yes, she’s afraid of what will happen if her mother finds out, but she’s also protective of her parents. Srinagar isn’t a huge town, and gossip travels fast.

Through her stern performance as Hameeda, Sheeba Chaddha makes sure we understand exactly why Zeba is scared of her mom. Hameeda levels a stare at Zeba that’s so withering that the film should come with a warning to protect delicate houseplants. Yet, when Noor Begum’s real identity is discovered, all of Zeba’s mother’s fears about social consequences come true.

Thankfully, Zeba and her family are saved by her greatest champion: Azaad, the station’s in-house lyricist. The two marry, and their romance is both tender and thrilling. They embody the style of the era and make a dashing couple. With Azaad’s support, Noor Begum capitalizes on the opportunities that arise as her soulful voice spreads beyond the borders of Kashmir.

One of Renzu’s points in making Songs of Paradise is to remind us how fragile history is. In an era before digital backups, physical copies of recordings were all that existed. Lose them, and you lose the performance, the song, the film. The credits of Songs of Paradise note that many of the songs used in the movie are recreations, likely due to there being no surviving physical recordings. The music in the film is a lovely augment to a charming story of progress and promise.

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Movie Review: Khuda Haafiz – Chapter 2 (2022)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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2020’s Khuda Haafiz presented action star Vidyut Jammwal in a different light, playing an ordinary man on a mission to rescue his kidnapped wife. The sequel Khuda Haafiz: Chapter 2 — Agni Pariksha shows the devastating consequences that the events of the first film have on both characters, propelling them to change in whole new ways.

The sequel picks up in 2008, one year after Jammwal’s Sameer rescued his wife Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi) from sex traffickers in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Noman. Getting her home safely wasn’t the end of their troubles as Sameer had hoped. Nargis is depressed and anxious, tired of the constant whispers about her ordeal by neighbors and coworkers. Sameer walks on eggshells, cautious not to upset Nargis but not sure how to fix her or their relationship.

In a well-meaning but misguided attempt to help Nargis open up emotionally, Sameer offers to look after his friend’s newly orphaned niece, 5-year-old Nandini (cute Riddhi Sharma). The girl’s presence initially has the opposite effect that Sameer wanted, reminding Nargis of the dreams that were taken from her in Noman. But when Nandini suffers a medical emergency, Nargis’s protective side takes over, and soon the three are living together as a happy family.

That joy doesn’t last. While heading home from school with a teenage neighbor named Seema (Anushka Marchande), the girls are kidnapped by three boys who’ve been stalking Seema. Their ringleader is Bacchu (Bodhisattva Sharma), grandson of a powerful family lead by matriarch Sheela Thakur (Sheeba Chaddha). The local police are either in cahoots with, or in fear of, Sheela. So, it becomes clear that Sameer will have to take matters into his own hands once again.

The public wants justice for the girls, thanks to sympathetic news coverage by reporter Ravi Kumar (Rajesh Tailang). Filmmaker Faruk Kabir — who wrote and directed both Khuda Haafiz movies — demonstrates how to properly include news reports in a film. Ravi is shown out in the field with his camera crew or recording in a studio. There are no annoying “man on the street” interviews or shots to make the audience feel as though they are watching a TV news report.

While the first film was based on a true story, the plot of the second is entirely Kabir’s own creation. This allows him to focus on character growth and the consequences of their actions. The result is a story that is exciting but grounded in reality. Unlike some Hollywood movies where superheroes destroy entire cities and get to go about their merry way, choices produce results that the characters in Khuda Haafiz – Chapter 2 have to deal with, good or bad.

Nargis was primarily acted upon in the first film, but here Oberoi gets to display real emotional range, carrying most of the story in the early stages. Nargis’s struggles are centered, as they should be. Only after Nandini is taken does she turn the reins over to Sameer.

As befits Jammwal’s martial arts background, Sameer’s character evolution is demonstrated through his fighting styles. In his first fight, he beats a callous police official in a blind rage, all fury and no finesse. This lands him in jail, where he is attacked by a gang that works for Sheela. He fights to survive in a manner that is still desperate but more calculating. When he’s released from prison, he’s a predator on the hunt, powerful and merciless.

The jail fight scene is particularly chilling because the prisoners’ improvised weapons — half of a pair of short scissors or a small piece of metal — require them to get very close to one another when attacking, stabbing in small bursts rather than taking long swipes from a distance. The sequence’s intimacy makes it especially terrifying.

Chaddha’s icy demeanor as Sheela is just as scary. At one point, she visits Nargis at her parents’ home, requesting a glass of milk from Nargis’s mother. After threatening Nargis and being met with defiance, Sheela drains the glass of milk in one go, sending the unambiguous message that she could make Nargis disappear just as easily. One would hardly imagine that drinking milk could be a menacing act, but Chaddha does it with aplomb.

Khuda Haafiz – Chapter 2 deals with a grim subject in a respectful way. While not taken from a single news story, Kabir distills the Indian public’s frustrated desire for justice in response to similar crimes into a fictional plot that feels cathartic but not pandering. Kabir treats his characters and the topic of crimes against women and girls with respect, and he trusts his audience to do the same.

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Movie Review: Phone Bhoot (2022)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Phone Bhoot is almost a very good movie. It has a distinct style and point of view, and Ishaan Khattar gives a hypnotic performance. But it badly needs editing.

It’s not just that Phone Bhoot is too long (though it is, especially for a comedy) or that scenes are too slow (though they are). It’s that all the cruft in the film makes the jokes less funny than if they were quick hits. There’s a reason why the Hamlet quote “Brevity is the soul of wit” endures over the centuries.

For example, take how the film’s main characters acquire their superpowers. Friends Major (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Gullu (Khattar) are two horror-obsessed slackers. While fixing the glowing eyes of their Frankenstein-like monster statue named Raaka, our heroes are electrocuted. Instead of just convulsing for a few seconds then dropping, director Gurmmeet Singh has the camera repeatedly cut between Major, Gullu, and Raaka as the humans convulse for what feels like forever. The prolonged electrocution sequence has been a tired Bollywood comedy trope for a long time.

When the guys wake up, they find that they can see ghosts. Specifically, they can see Ragini (Katrina Kaif), a beautiful spectre who makes them a proposition. She will help them start an exorcism business, thereby earning enough to pay back the money that the guys owe their fathers. In exchange, they have to help her with a favor, no questions asked.

An interesting theme that comes up as the trio’s exorcism business takes off is the financial ramifications of death. The ghost of a young woman haunts the family of the man who killed her in a hit-and-run not just because of the unfairness of her life being cut short. It’s also because the woman was the breadwinner for her aging parents, who now live in poverty. Other ghosts have similar stories. It’s a thoughtful acknowledgement that justice may be best served in forms other than jail time or equivalent physical punishment.

Another cool thing about Major and Gullu is that they are obsessed expressly with Indian horror movies. There are very few references to Hollywood horror films in the movie, and all of the posters and props in their apartment are from older Bollywood flicks. Ragini’s name obviously comes from the Ragini MMS series, and I’m sure there are tons of other references for those with a deeper knowledge of spooky Hindi classics than I have.

Unfortunately, as with the electrocution sequence, the movie draws too much from outdated comedy and storytelling styles. Jokes last so long that they stop being funny. The story moves too slowly, especially since there isn’t really a b-plot. There’s plenty of room in the narrative for characters like the Major’s and Gullu’s dads to reappear to check on their unconventional sons’ progress, or for there to be more to the guys’ thin association with a witch whose name translates in the English subtitles as Wicky Witch (Sheeba Chaddha).

Likewise, it would’ve been better to have the guys encounter the movie’s villain Aatmaram Shastrashakti (Jackie Shroff) earlier in the story, rather than keep the evil sorcerer sequestered in the underground lair he’s leasing from Big Trouble in Little China‘s David Lo Pan.

Another disappointment is that the songs and choreography are forgettable. None of the numbers will rank among Kaif’s greatest hits, despite pairing her with an excellent dancer like Khattar. (Chartuvedi holds his own on the dance floor, too.)

Kaif’s performance is solid as the stand-in for the audience, rolling her eyes at the two dopes she’s forced to rely on for help. Chaturvedi’s mugging as Major is a bit much at times but mostly fits with his character’s personality. Khattar is the real standout, totally immersing himself in every scene, no matter how silly, and reacting authentically.

Were it 30 minutes shorter, Phone Bhoot would be a real winner.

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Movie Review: Maja Ma (2022)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Who we are is a complicated question because so much of our identity is relational. Descriptors like wife, mother, sister, friend, or co-worker all depend on there being at least one specific person on the other side of the equation. Navigating all those identities is tricky enough before we introduce individual identities that can be broader yet also more personal: artist, woman, gay, or straight. Maja Ma follows the members of the Patel family as a rumor makes them examine their own identities and their relationships with each other.

Tejas Patel (Ritwik Bhowmik) is trying to convince the wealthy parents of his Indian-American girlfriend Esha Hansraj (Barkha Singh) to allow him to marry their daughter. Tejas already passed a lie detector test required by Texans Bob (Rajit Kapoor) and Pam Hansraj (Sheeba Chaddha) to ensure that he isn’t just after the family’s money. The real challenge is a meeting between the families in India to prove that the Patels embody Bob’s idea of true Indian values. Bob believes anything less might harm Bob’s future campaign to become mayor of Houston.

The Patel family is pretty typical — dad Manohar (Gajraj Rao), mom Pallavi (Madhuri Dixit), Tejas, and his sister Tara (Srishti Shrivastava) — but Tara is the wildcard. She’s working on her PhD in gender studies, and she’s a vocal supporter of LGBTQIA+ rights. She’s so vocal that even the advocacy group she volunteers for asks her to tone down her fiery rhetoric to spare them the negative press.

Pallavi is supportive of her daughter, but she’s not keen on discussing sexuality with her. During an argument in which Tara presses her mom to admit whether she would have accepted Tara if she was gay (she’s not), Pallavi blurts out that she herself is a lesbian. It’s an effective way to end the argument, but Tara suspects that maybe there’s some truth behind her mom’s words.

When the Hansraj family arrives in town, the Patels do their best to tolerate their insufferable future in-laws for Tejas’s sake. Bob leers at Pallavi and says things like, “Exotic,” during her welcome ritual. When Tara serves snacks, Pam asks her if she’s menstruating (she’s not) since Bob won’t eat any food prepared by a woman who is.

At a festival that night, the host shows a video recorded by one of the nosy neighborhood kids that includes secretly recorded footage of Pallavi’s confession during her argument with Tara, sending the whole town into an uproar. Women exclude Pallavi from their activities, Manohar’s manhood is mocked, and Bob and Pam threaten to call off the engagement — unless Pallavi can pass a lie detector test.

Whether Pallavi’s confession is actually true is immaterial in the sense that everyone in her life changes the way they treat her anyway. Manohar’s concerns are the most understandable since Pallavi being a lesbian alters the foundations of their marriage. Tejas is willing to haul his mom off to conversion therapy if it means he can still marry Esha. Tara is thrilled at the prospect of having a lesbian mother, as it would give her more credibility in her gay rights organization.

One of the counselors in Tara’s organization emphasizes that it’s entirely up to Pallavi whether she decides to publicly embrace being a lesbian. The reactions by her family, the Hansrajs, and everyone else in the neighborhood show that doing so would not come without a cost. In addition to being a lesbian, Pallavi is a mother and a wife — two roles she’s let define her knowing that other options were not available to her when she was of marriageable age.

As far as the audience knows, Pallavi loves being a mom and being part of her community, and she and Manohar have an amicable relationship. Is making a public declaration worth risking damage to the other parts of her life she’s spent decades building? Director Anand Tiwari and writer Sumit Batheja compassionately provide context for a heart-wrenching decision people are still forced to make in places where it is not safe to come out.

Maja Ma also thoughtfully depicts the changing family dynamics as adult children finally realize that their parents are more than just “Mom” and “Dad.” Likewise, Manohar’s attempts to rekindle the physical romance in his marriage are handled with grace and good humor. This is a movie that is very fond of the main family at its core.

Conversely, Bob and Pam are shown to be buffoons who get away with awful behavior because they have money. One curious point is that the movie gives Esha a pass for tolerating her parents’ rude, bigoted behavior. Her unconditional love of them is painted as a good thing, but that doesn’t mean she should condone their abuse. Far less emotional growth is demanded of her than the other adult children in the film, and it seems like a missed opportunity.

Still, Tiwari’s and Batheja’s attempts to address as the many complications that would arise from Pallavi’s confession is worth applauding, as are the performances by Maja Ma‘s terrific cast.

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