Anuj Kumar

A gossamer-thin romantic comedy that comes across as Karan Johar’s latest home assignment for star kids to pass the Bollywood entrance test, Nadaaniyan doesn’t pass muster. Reflecting the armchair sensibility of the Bandra school of filmmaking, the love story strains credibility and tests patience. Its nebulous ideas on education are irritating, and the cultural context of Delhi-NCR is deeply annoying. Moreover, when a dated plot is ploughed by stock characters, it invariably yields meagre returns. Led by debutant director Shauna Gautam, a troika of writers promises to provide insights into adulting. Set in an elite school, the film follows Pia Jaisingh (Khushi Kapoor) as she hires a middle-class student, Arjun Mehta (Ibrahim Ali Khan), as her boyfriend to secure the trust of her BFFs. As they come close, the pretense gives way to a predictable relationship, leading to cosmetic complexities that weigh a few Instagram-worthy reels.

We get so many spam calls these days that it is hard to figure out which ones are real. Then, while driving the car, you listen to FM stations where prank calls drive the programming. Director Girish Kohli employs this odd everyday reality in this thrilling race against time. On the way to the hospital to settle a crucial deal, doctor Abhimanyu (Sohum Shah) gets a mysterious call telling him that his daughter has been kidnapped, and he has time till sunset to save her life. As Abhimanyu presses the pedal, Kohli drops red herrings on the highway. Gradually, we discover that Abhimanyu is an inadequate surgeon and a flawed father.

Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon is the kind of film that is called a crowd-pleaser in the festival circuit and a critic-seeker at the box office. Unraveling like an aesthetically charged, culturally muted performative version of Faiza Ahmad Khan’s acclaimed documentary Malegaon Ka Superman (2008), it sets out to celebrate the true story of a mofussil town’s obsession with cinema, where a wedding videographer’s vision spurs a cottage industry of spoofs of Bollywood classics. Reema and screenwriter Varun Grover expand on the hour-long documentary to explore deep-rooted fragile notions of originality, taste, and class in the realm of creativity. Unfortunately, the film suffers from the same issues that it engages with.

As the world customarily deliberates on a woman’s place in society this week, writer-director Jayant Somalkar shows us the mirror through a deceptively simple take on the patriarchal roots of the traditional matchmaking process and the attendant social churn in our villages. Structured like a coming-of-age story of a village girl struggling to find her way out of the dragnet of gender roles and societal expectations, protagonist Savita’s tenacity and quiet rebellion pierce our consciousness. Seen from a girl’s point of view, Sthal’s scope is not limited to the humiliation a girl and her family endure in finding a suitable match through an arranged marriage. It deconstructs its cultural context, its normalisation, and its consequences. When news pages bring the rise in the number of farmer suicides and the sale of mobile phones in rural Maharashtra into our living rooms, one misses the social pressures and moral conditioning that pushes a peasant to the brink and reduce jobless youth to data.

Based on Shivaji Sawant’s popular novel, Chhaava is a puff piece on Maratha warrior Chhatrapati Sambhaji, who took on the might of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb for around eight years in the 17th Century. Carrying forward the defiant approach of his father Chhatrapati Shivaji, he kept Aurangzeb occupied in the Deccan during the second half of his reign, inflicting heavy damage on his humongous army and pride with his unmatched valour and guerilla tactics before being betrayed by his brother-in-law. Historians may not have been generous to the shooting star but, over the years, Sambhaji has acquired an almost divine status in Marathi cultural space. In recent years, at least three Marathi films portrayed him as someone who laid down his life for the Hindu faith. Director Laxman Utekar carries forward the narrative. Early in the film, when Sambhaji maims a lion, it becomes clear that it is going be a literal cinematic depiction of Calendar art by Utekar, who started his career as a cinematographer. When Sambhaji saves a Muslim child amid a battle — and a few reels later, Mughal soldiers burn a shepherdess alive — it becomes clear the agenda Chhaava seeks to promote and the emotion it wants to play up. However, when characters start introducing themselves and their intentions like players at the start of a cricket match, one wants to tell Utekar, ‘Zara Hatke Zara Bachke’

Smartphone is the new villain in love stories. Screenwriters looking for new obstacles for love birds have discovered social evils on the web. After Muddassar Aziz used phone swapping to generate humour in Khel Khel Main, director Advait Chandan recycles the Tamil hit Love Today to create a romantic comedy about the ill effects of social media and artificial intelligence on relationships in Loveyapa. Baani (Khushi Kapoor) and Gaurav (Junaid Khan) feel their romance is transparent till Baani’s father Atul (Ashutosh Rana) asks them to swap their phones before they exchange vows. As the phones get unlocked, it opens Pandora’s chat box with the video libraries and vaults of phones revealing secrets that both are not ready to overlook. Written by Sneha Desai, the film makes interesting observations on how the young generation is losing touch with reality and how there is a distinct difference in their online and offline character. In this game of choices, there is no gender divide. It also touches upon the issues of online fat shaming and the emerging scourge of deepfakes.

Is he an adult? Is he a child? He is your father. In his first directorial venture, Boman Irani renders a keenly observed, lived experience of an urban Indian family as he finds the simple answer to the tricky question. The tension between father and son never goes out of fashion in creative space, but the expression often tilts towards one generation or the other. Boman and co-writer Alexander Dinelaris (of Birdman fame) walk the rope in this tender exploration of a jagged relationship that leaves a sobering impact. Rich in detail, redolent with melancholy, and peppered with meaningful motifs, the film caresses a raw nerve. The duo generates a dialogue between two generations without getting pedantic, without losing sight of the plot. A charming, emerging architect struggling to find his voice in the boardroom, Amay (Avinash Tiwary) returns home after the sudden demise of his mother to see his grieving father Shiv (Boman) wilt. Though grappling with loss, Shiv doesn’t seek his son’s shoulder to cry. Amay doesn’t offer it either. Like most Indian families, the two share a silent relationship that appears strained from the outside. His sister Ana (Shikha Sarup) is the link connecting the two. She wants to take her father to the US. But is the father ready to make the emotional shift? She bribes him with his favourite meal, but Shiv sees through the design.

After a long wait, we have a mainstream flick where the hero makes you forget the lapses in the logic of the screenplay as director Rosshan Andrrews mounts his Malayalam blockbuster Mumbai Police for the Hindi heartland, a decade after its release. Among the current crop of Bollywood actors, Shahid Kapoor has the wherewithal to generate the wildfire out of the masala moments that recipes from the South spark. A rare breed in this generation who can be believable and lovable in the high register, Shahid excels in roles rooted in the duality of character. Here he is a ferocious Animal in uniform who slays with style in the first half. Armed with the licence of daddy issues, as Dev, the star flaunts the angst-ridden charm of Kabir Singh and the chutzpah of Haider and mauls everyone who comes in his path for fun.