Sonal Pandya

Netflix’s first Tamil original, Test, is a fine character study with star power. However, in the sports portions, S Sashikanth’s feature lacks the tension that would elevate the film further. R Madhavan, Nayanthara, and Siddharth play characters who are forced to expose their darkest sides when they are pushed to their limits. When the film remains focused on their internal conflicts, the ’test’ they are enduring, Test, is at its best. If you’re coming in looking for a sports drama, this thriller is more interested in the human aspect and the damage we can inflict upon one another. Test is the story of three headstrong individuals. Siddharth is Arjun, India’s most successful batsman on the verge of retirement. Saravanan (Madhavan) and Kumudha (Nayanthara) are a couple on the verge of having their dreams come true. After a decade of trying and failing, Kumudha is going for one last attempt at motherhood through IVF. A former MIT graduate and scientist, Sara is about to land a deal that will revive his career and help the country. Sara’s and Kumudha’s futures are tied into Arjun’s as an important test match begins in Chennai against Pakistan.

Netflix’s The Life List is designed as a tearjerker but doesn’t really push any exceptional buttons while trying to reach viewers’ emotions. Sofia Carson plays Alex, a young woman either in her late 20s or early 30s who gets her kick in life from her dead mother. Alex supposedly becomes a grownup in the course of the feature; however, it feels as if the film is pushing too hard to make us feel without actually showing us why. The film opens with Alex at a crossroads in life without the job of her dreams, directionless and not serious about her future. After the death of her mother, Elizabeth (Connie Britton), Alex is shocked by the directives in her will. In a move that will remind Bollywood fans of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, her mother sends Alex her teenage bucket list to complete. Upon completion of each one, she receives a video message and moves one step closer towards her inheritance. Reluctantly, Alex agrees but not before arguing with everyone about it, including the handsome young lawyer Brad (Kyle Allen) assigned to handle her mother’s estate.

The new crime drama, MobLand, directed by Guy Ritchie, holds all the hallmarks of the filmmaker. And yet there is something distinctive missing from the gritty gangster saga as Tom Hardy plays Harry Da Souza, a fixer left to clean up the many messes of the Harrigan family. So far, the nine-episode London-set series is keeping a cliffhanger for each chapter in trying to raise the tension. Ronan Bennett’s series has had a slow-moving start, but it needs to amp things up to match the intensity of Ritchie’s other projects. Hardy’s Harry has been loyally serving Conrad Harrigan (Pierce Brosnan) for a long time now. The fixer saves the old crime lord and every member of his family whenever they get in a bind. But we join the story at a bit of a power struggle between the Harrigans and their rivals, the Stevensons, before erupting into an all out war. As Harry tries to smoothen things over, his family life suffers as well. Who will be left standing at the end when the lines are all drawn out against family loyalties?

Making movies is a serious business. But in the Apple TV+ series, The Studio, co-created by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez, seeing the behind-the-scenes decisions on how movies get sanctioned is very funny business indeed. Rogen is Matt Remick, who is bumped up as the head of Continental Studios, and has to prove himself over and over as he tries to do what he loves the most, make movies. The clever and biting satire lifts the lid on awards ceremonies, industry parties, and of course, the deals that go into making sure the movies get sanctioned in the first place. Corporate CEO Griffin Mill, played by the excellent Bryan Cranston in a guest appearance, promotes Matt Remick as top boss and sets some unreasonable expectations on him. The movie-loving executive has some tough decisions to make from here on, most of which he fumbles badly. Like most studios, Matt must launch a franchise based on a nostalgic brand like Barbie, and watching him and his team put together a film on Kool-Aid is downright hilarious. Even more cringeworthy are Matt’s interactions with people who make movies; he has a desperate need to be liked. At times when absolutely everything goes wrong, he and his team manage to hold it through.

A standalone followup to Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, this new instalment is set in Kolkata, with the only similarity being a cop bringing down a crime nexus. In Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, the corruption is deep-rooted, wherein the politicians in power already have an alliance with gangsters. The Hindi series, created by Neeraj Pandej, boasts of a star-studded cast who fill out the erractic narrative in which every man and woman is out for themselves. The crime thriller is set in the early 2000s, with Parambrata Chatterjee playing an honorable cop who sets out to break up the lawlessness in the city. However, his death sets off a chain of events that leads to the downfall of the whole criminal alliance between the ruling party, the cops, and the top crime lord Bagha (Saswata Chatterjee). Afterwards, the balance of power continues to shift as everyone tries to make a play. But with a new man on the scene with IPS Arjun Maitra (Jeet), it starts off a bloody game of chess.

There have several documentaries and series dissecting the curious case of Natalia Grace, a young Ukrainian girl with dwarfism adopted by an American couple. Later, the couple, Kristen and Michael Barnett, allege that they’ve been misled and Natalia is actually an adult. The adoption drama, which later escalates into a legal trial, is detailed in the new JioHotstar series, Good American Family, led by Ellen Pompeo and Mark Duplass. The tone of the series feels similar to a horror film or a car crash, when you know that the inevitable is upon you soon. Kristen (Ellen Pompeo) and Michael Barnett (Mark Duplass) already have a strained marriage, raising three boys, including one with autism. They are seeking to adopt a young girl to complete their family. Kristen is shown as a selfless Midwestern mother, running a rec center for special needs and raising her autistic son, who is considered a prodigy. Meanwhile, Michael is shown as slightly more needy and unable to handle the larger pressures of life. Their marriage is one crack away from splitting when Natalia Grace (Imogen Faith Reid) enters their home.

Remo D’Souza’s latest dance film Be Happy revolves around the relationship between a straitlaced single father and his imaginative daughter. Together, through the medium of dance, they learn to live life to its fullest. While much of the Hindi film is focused on young Dhara wanting to achieve her dream of appearing on the dance reality show India’s Superstar Dancer, Be Happy is much stronger when it rests on the father-daughter bond. The dance portions of the film are unnecessarily stretched. Dhara (Inayat Varma) lives with her father Shiv Rastogi (Abhishek Bachchan) and grandfather Mr Nandar (Nasser) in Ooty. But her real dream is to join Maggie Teacher’s (Nora Fatehi) top dance academy in Mumbai and appear on India’s Superstar Dancer. The musical drama follows how she manages to fulfill her wishes against all odds. Along the way, Shiv also learns to be a little less rigid and protective as a single father after the death of his wife Rohin (Harleen Sethi).

Co-created by star Stephen Graham and filmmaker Jack Thorne, Adolescence should become necessary viewing at schools for teachers, students, and parents. The four-part series is focused on the arrest of a 13-year-old boy, Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), accused of stabbing his classmate fatally. The British series deftly captures how this incident affects all those around Jamie—his family, the police, his classmates, and even the psychologist assigned to the case. While the devastating story will leave you emotionally sapped at the end, Adolescence is a stark reminder of the evolving world around us where kids are forced to grow up much too fast.