Priyanka Roy

O’Romeo is a story of revenge served hot and bloody. Vishal Bhardwaj’s latest film — on many parameters the director’s most commercial outing yet — gets off the blocks with a visceral and violent scene in which Shahid Kapoor’s Ustara whips out his signature ustara (aka razor) and proceeds to cut open half a dozen men. The scene takes place in a single-screen cinema with Madhuri Dixit going “dhak dhak karne laga” even as Ustara goes about slicing and dicing his adversaries with both dramatic precision and poetic choreography. The sequence lays the foundation for the vibe as well the visual language of O’Romeo — a film that often relies on gratuitous violence but can also be vulnerable and tender (mostly when the ‘Romeo’ in O’Romeo surfaces) when it chooses to be.

Like its title, Punjab nebulously creeps up on you in the new season of Kohrra. This is not the bhangra-dancing, balle-balle boisterousness that almost every depiction of the state has been weighed down with, but a Punjab that feels real and lived-in; where secrets lurk in the shadowy cul-de-sacs and conspiracies are hatched in dilapidated local bars. It is a Punjab where generational trauma is a byproduct of gender bias, and vice versa. A Punjab where humour resides not in the backslapping, jokey way we are accustomed to expecting, but arises out of everyday situations which may (or may not) naturally lend themselves to it.

When we first met her in the summer of 2014, Shivani Shivaji Roy made an instant impression. Played by Rani Mukerji in a way that seemingly flumped a woman as a misfit in a man’s world but one that she steadily made her own non-negotiable domain — one punch and punchline at a time — Mardaani, with Rani leading with her feisty and fiery walk and talk, not only gave us a shero to cheer for but also a film that naturally lent itself to a franchise.

Cognitive bias based on the positive traits of a person often makes human psychology assume that the individual in question has other unrelated qualities that are also likable. This is the ‘Halo Effect’. The Halo Effect, by association, extends itself to assuming that if you like a person, you tend to start liking (sometimes, not always) those he or she associates with, even if you may not have had a good impression of them in the first place. That happens with me when it comes to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. I like Damon — actor, human, overall great guy, et al. Affleck — sporadically interesting on screen, controversial off it, perpetual hangdog demeanour — I am not a fan of. But I always enjoy watching the two together. One of Hollywood’s strongest, lasting friendships makes for a great creative partnership — as co-actors, co-producers, co-writers — meeting as they did 45 years ago when Damon was 10 and Affleck two years younger. They even have an Oscar together, and their joint interviews are tinged with warmth, wit, charm and congeniality.

We find ourselves in an age where romance — not to be confused with love — is manufactured, off screen as much as it is on it. The list of perennial favourites in the Hollywood romantic-comedy genre rarely deviate beyond When Harry Met Sally, Notting Hill, The Notebook, and You’ve Got Mail, and I am not just talking about someone like me who is of a certain vintage. Gen-Z may argue — “What about To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before?” or “Haven’t you watched La La Land?” — and with solid enough reason, but a classic rom-com for the ages has been a long time coming.

Though it may not qualify as a typical feel-good, mushed-up Christmas watch, Goodbye June is a well performed and sincerely mounted family drama, which, however, springs no surprises. Sometimes clunky, but mostly charming and held together by a bunch of memorable performances, Goodbye June is the directorial debut of Kate Winslet, who works out of a script written by Joe Anders, her 22-year-old son with ex husband and filmmaker Sam Mendes. Winslet also stars as one of the principal characters.

Exposition. Explanation. Emotion. Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 2 rests on these three Es. The other ‘E’ that worms its way into the three episodes of this volume — before the grand finale drops less than a week later — is ‘Exotic Matter’ and with it the realisation (courtesy Dustin Henderson) that everything we have thought of the Upside Down over the last decade is not really it. In reality, the evil parallel dimension that has been at the heart of Stranger Things is, well, not a parallel dimension at all. It is, in fact, a wormhole to an even worse dimension that Vecna is trying to “collapse”, with an eye on taking over the world.

Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri. Any film with a title that aims for the tongue twister hall of fame — and failing spectacularly even on that front — is anyway trying too hard. The rest of it is no different. TMMTMTTM (took me multiple back space taps to get that right) tries too hard to be a breezy comedy. It tries too hard to be an intense romance. It tries too hard to have a cool cat of a leading man. It tries too hard to have a heroine in touch with her emotions. It tries to hard to conjure chemistry. It tries too hard to build conflict. It tries to hard to be an “it’s all about loving your parents” emo-drama (their words, not ours). And it tries way too hard be a “2025 ke hookup culture mein ‘90s ki love story.”