Plus, our verdict on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem!
Scam 2003: Gagan Dev Riar As Telgi Is 2023's Breakthrough Performance |
This is #CriticalMargin, where Ishita Sengupta gets contemplative over new Hindi films and shows. |
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| THERE is more than one similarity between Hansal Mehta’s Scam 1992 and Scam 2003. Both series outline the meteoric rise and fall of fraudsters. If Scam 1992 (2020) delved into the life of notorious stockbroker Harshad Mehta, its spiritual sequel focusses on stamp paper counterfeiter Abdul Karim Telgi who spearheaded a fraud of Rs 300 crores. But what really ties both the shows together is phenomenal central performances. Pratik Gandhi was astonishing as Mehta, inhabiting the role with unmatched physical and emotional acuity. Gagan Dev Riar as Telgi is in a league of his own. It helps that the actor bears an uncanny resemblance to the man he is depicting. But even then it is difficult to verbalise the extent of Riar’s craft and commitment to showcasing a personality who forever stationed himself on the other side of law without remorse. It is the little things: the way he lifts his pants, an act that becomes his signature across the five episodes (the remaining five are slated to stream in November), the ease with which his face changes from dejection to arrogance, the calmness with which he approaches people knowing that everything and everyone has a price. |
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| Friday Night Plan: Impressive Debut That Conveys Much |
MOST days I watch Schitt’s Creek before going to sleep. The Eugene and Dan Levy show is an affirming work of fiction, possibly the best we have. But there is something else the series does for me. Centered on an affluent family whose personal ties are strengthened once their materialistic baggage gets displaced, the outing serves as a reminder that all adversities lead to a sunnier resolution. And that the four central characters tide through a downswing that turns out to be anything but, while also gently underlining that not all resolutions need to be earned.
Watching Vatsal Neelakantan’s Friday Night Plan, I thought of the Canadian sitcom a lot. This is not to say that the feature is anything like Schitt’s Creek but the filmmaker employs a similar brand of empathy towards its characters while foregrounding a liberating idea: something terrible need not happen for everything to fall in place. — ISHITA SENGUPTA |
| 'Are You There, God?...' Is An Ode To The Religion Of Living |
YOU know how good books make you imagine the story in moving images? You read a paragraph and your mind immediately allocates a sense of memory, place and time to it. Kelly Fremon Craig’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is conversely true — it’s a film that makes you imagine the words of the book it’s based on. You watch a moment and your mind starts to allot a sense of literature to it. I haven’t read Judy Blume’s seminal 1970 novel, but the tranquil middle-school movie unfolds in the language of both text and subtext. It captures girlhood through the lens of change, without compromising on the inevitability. The coming-of-age-ness is almost spare, like something that’s written rather than seen. It reveals the relationship between fate and faith. The title refers to the pleas of an 11-year-old for whom ‘God’ is merely a distant cousin of Santa Claus. Prayer is an adolescent wishlist, not (yet) an ode to religion. — RAHUL DESAI |
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Cowabunga, We Have A Winner! |
Mutant Mayhem hits the reset button on the TMNT franchise to press home the fact that the Turtles are first and foremost teenagers, writes Prahlad Srihari. |
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| EARLY on in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, a fresh animated reboot of a shell-shocked franchise, the four goofy misfits Mikey, Donnie, Leo and Raph slack off from running errands to sneak into an open-air screening at a Brooklyn drive-in. The movie being shown on this particular night is John Hughes’ '80s teen romp Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Watching three high-schoolers on screen play hooky, carpe diem, and figure out who they are — resounds deeply in the minds of the Turtles, all of whom long for acceptance and a life of normalcy. Mutant Mayhem hits the reset button on the TMNT franchise to press home the fact that the Turtles are first and foremost teenagers, a fact the franchise seemed to have forgotten somewhere between all the ill-conceived live-action features. The title here may advertise “mutant” twice and promise “mayhem”, but “teenage” is very much the operative word. |
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The one newsletter you need to decide what to watch on any given day. Our editors pick a show, movie, or theme for you from everything that’s streaming on OTT. |
| Each week, our editors pick one long-form, writerly piece that they think is worthy of your attention, and dice it into easily digestible bits for you to mull over. |
| In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an hour on this. |
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