Sukanya Verma

In Jab Tak Hai Jaan, Shah Rukh Khan tells Katrina Kaif, ‘Har ishq ka ek waqt hota hai’ to make sense of their estrangement. It’s as though all of showrunner Sharanya Rajgopal’s Musafir Cafe hinges on this line where two love stories run parallel and reveal the fickle face of modern-day love. An adaptation of Divya Prakash Dubey’s popular Hinglish novel of the same name, Musafir Cafe travels between now and then as the origins of Chander (Vikrant Massey) and Sudha’s (Vedika Pinto) lovey-dovey past loom over the polite affections between Chander and Preeti (Mahima Makwana) in the present. One was his love, another is his partner, a distinction observed rather impersonally in Musafir Cafe.

The YRF spy universe may pride itself on crossovers but the only connection it has ever established is superstar cameos make for crowd-pleasing attractions every time they get each other’s back in lavishly mounted action set pieces. Even at their scene stealing best – think Katrina Kaif’s towel clad fisticuffs in Tiger 3 or Deepika Padukone’s ice skating chase in Pathaan – the ladies must settle for secondary status. In Alpha, women are shown as the face of the franchise but still dictated by men in power as fathers and foes they must contend with for the sake of spinoffs. Director Shiv Rawail’s half-hearted diversion from the male-dominated genre means to give the girls their due but only ends up failing their cause in a generic, lacklustre actioner.

As filmmakers, Rajkumar Hirani’s cheerful spin on social issues and Avinash Arun Dharware’s moody, gritty slices of life could not be more different. One would not think of them as collaborators but that’s exactly what they are on Pritam And Pedro, a buddy comedy about a pair of chalk and cheese individuals joining hands against the masterminds of cybercrime. Having watched all of its six staggeringly sloppy and staid episodes, perhaps they are better off staying in their own lanes. As the creator, co-writer, producer, editor and father of one of Pritam And Pedro’s titular heroes, Rajkumar Hirani dons a lot of hats and tries to bring his rosy outlook to a premise hinged on thrill and danger.

When the first Welcome came out in 2007, the comic camaraderie between Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar as Majnu and Uday delivered on its laugh out loud promise. With the second one, Welcome Back, the madness appeared to be losing its edge save for the lone, loony graveyard scene elevated by Anil and Nana’s superbness in a leave-your-brains-behind brand of comedy. Third time’s the charm? If chuckling five times in three hours is the new definition of hilarity, sure, why not? Welcome To The Jungle’s crowded chaos strays wholly from its loony gangsters theme to achieve its ‘big is better’ beliefs. Director Ahmed Khan replaces Anees Bazmee for this sillier-by-the-second spectacle starring a swarm of stars. As a matter of fact, one hour of its 164 minutes long circus is spent introducing its unending stock of characters as part of Welcome To The Jungle’s grand humorous plan.

We got to be kidding ourselves if we thought films like Cocktail have anything to do with modern day love or changing relationship dynamics. Thriving on styling more than storytelling, fashion and far flung destinations flush its frames like ’90s escapism once did with dream sequences of dancing in the Swiss Alps. When Homi Adajania’s Cocktail came out in 2012, what caught everyone’s fancy was Deepika Padukone’s loosened-up avatar, Diana Penty’s poised debut and the twain painting London red in a wardrobe full of chic clothing. What didn’t blow anyone’s mind was watching rom-com’s worn-out poster boy Saif Ali Khan fool around women half his age in a disappointingly conventional love triangle penned by Imtiaz Ali.

Survivors of Partition could never truly move on as the horrors it brought on continued to haunt their hearts for the rest of their days. So did the hope to see their home once in their lifetime. They never really believed they won’t be able to return ever again. I’ve heard of the displacement and a desire to revisit their home in stories of my grandparent-in-laws. They, like many others, on both sides of the border, died without getting their wish fulfilled. Scenes of burying their wealth in the backyard with hopes of reclaiming it on return, fleeing bloodthirsty foes on the other side with the help of friends from the same community or women wearing a vial of poison around their necks in the event of violent mob attacks, days and days of uncertainty spent in camps would become stories of staying alive. One that flocks of homeless and heartbroken refugees, like my relatives, would remember and remind generations to come.

There was a time when India’s coffers were nearly empty. Impacted by the Gulf War, the Soviet Bloc collapse and a climate of political instability incensed by shaky coalition governments on the home front, reserves were drained out and revenue depleted, leaving India on the brink of bankruptcy if it didn’t get its act together. And soon. Told by an aunt to his nephew like a fairy tale in flashback, Chinmay D Mandlekar’s Governor unfolds sans any real context, without ever explaining its purpose or underlining meaning. Despite its contemporary resonance, the film insists the country is a lot more flourishing now than it was back in the early 1990s. Set against the backdrop of India’s financial troubles in 1990-1991, Manoj Bajpayee in and as Governor shows how a single man’s acumen for finding bold solutions while everybody else moped about consequences rescued the nation from dire straits.

A brand’s biopic by virtue is hagiographical. Conventional wisdom says telling the story of what made a product so great without becoming its mouthpiece kind of defeats the purpose. Even the likes of Barbie or Air, showing a shrewd acumen for perception versus pop culture, cannot shrug off the weight of the legacy they’re inherently protecting. Made in India: A Titan Story chronicles the history of a homegrown brand at a time when the market was too conservative to dream big. It may not carry the nostalgia of HMT, its more iconic predecessor whose monopoly Titan founder Xerxes Desai ended with a mid-1980s collaboration between the Tata group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation that gave birth to the quartz timepiece in the era of mechanical. But there’s enough of the likeability synonymous with the brand. Titan’s accessibility, appealing appearance and after sales service, boosted by a catchy advertising campaign riding high on Mozart’s Fifth Symphony, proved to be another feather in Tata’s cap.