Sukanya Verma

They’re red carpets laid out by formula-favouring filmmakers for ‘Bhai’ to strut around in slow motion and assert his stardom to indulgent fans again and again and again. But surely, even the most accommodating Bhai bhakts have a breaking point, especially when the red carpet resembles a tattered rug trod on by a hubris high superstar wearing sunglasses so shiny he cannot read the writing on the wall: STOP. There’s not any effort — not even a smidgen — to resurrect a superstar on the wane in Sikandar by A R Murugadoss. Instead, you get dialogues like ‘Insaaf nahi saaf karna hai.’ Four writer credits (Murugadoss, Rajat Aroraa, Hussain Dalal, Abbas Dalal) and this is what they came up with?

The Diplomat begins with a disclaimer so lengthy, someone at the press show quipped ‘interval’ at the end. Among many, many, MANY things, it makes a point to mention that the movie, which is based on the true story of Indian citizen Uzma Ahmed, is neither a biopic nor a documentary, neither condones nor endorses the views put forward and so on and so forth. In 2017, Uzma became national news when she sought the Indian high commission’s help to get her out of Pakistan. The media documented her tears, trauma and thank you on television as she sat between then external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and then deputy high commissioner in Islamabad J P Singh recounting her story. There’s significant cinematic value to her harrowing experiences and Writer Ritesh Shah and Director Shivam Nair dig into it to recreate the drama, if not the danger.

Abhishek Bachchan is shaping into quite a father figure. From playing one to his real-life ‘Paa’ Amitabh Bachchan wherein the latter’s progeria condition ages him dramatically to the point of infirmity, an estranged dad of a precocious kid he reunites with under curious circumstances in Ludo, a divorced daddy surviving medical issues of the life-threatening kind while navigating a bumpy relationship with his daughter in I Want to Talk to a single dad of a smart-alecky princess harbouring dancer dreams in Be Happy, Abhishek has embarked on quite a few journeys where his parenting skills are put to test. Unlike the textbook Papas trickling with emotional wisdom and snuggly warmth, Abhishek’s silently supportive approach, playful sarcasm and sparingly expressed authority conveys a father figuring it out as he goes along.

Colleges are swanky theme parks for fashion and filmi romances in Karan Johar’s universe. From Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Student of the Year, the coolness quotient in his depiction is a no-expense-spared fantasy we continue to live in vicariously. No wonder his more hand-me-down home productions and streaming offshoots have no desire to escape its allure. Only the pretty leans heavily towards plastic in Nadaniyaan, the Netflix campus romance directed by his Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani assistant Shauna Gautam based on Riva Razdan Kapoor’s story. Desperate high schooler striking a mutually beneficial deal with a fellow student to play her pretend boyfriend for a few days until they actually fall in love causing complications is a done-to-death Hollywood trope.

Renowned American jeweller Harry Winston once sent a precious diamond in an ordinary brown package by registered mail as he felt the less attention it draws, the more secure its delivery. Watching the women of Dabba Cartel casually supply dope all across the city of Mumbai as part of their tiffin courier service has a similar aplomb to it. In a shrewd but simple touch, there’s a bindi to tell regular lunch boxes from the suspect ones and avoid the chance of mix-up. Using everyday domestic imagery to camouflage an illegal enterprise is their masterstroke move but more than the trick, its the compulsions and challenges driving each of these five women that gives Dabba Cartel its spunk to a certain degree.

Between done-to-death tropes and flimsily updated ones, Mere Husband Ki Biwi sticks to ancient formulae yet gives a semblance of keeping up with the times only to confirm that old habits die hard. In Mudassar Aziz’s routine rom-com, a divorcee dangles between his fiery ex and doting fiancée sparking off a battle for one-upmanship. It starts like a cheesy David Dhawan comedy salvaged by Govinda’s inimitable lunacy back in the day and advances into a My Best Friend’s Wedding rehash sans the deliciousness of Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz’s jell-o pitted against creme brulee. Except this return to the 1990s style of whimsy evokes more nausea than nostalgia with its drab humour and out of sync performances.

Anuja begins with a girl telling her tween sibling a Panchatantra story about how a faithful mongoose saved a farmer’s child from a poisonous snake yet was mistaken for an attacker because of his master’s impetuous impulses. Making a thoughtful decision is central to writer-director Adams J Graves’ Oscar-nominated live-action short film – backed by the likes of Guneet Monga, Mindy Kaling and Priyanka Chopra Jones – about a pair of orphaned sisters inhabiting Delhi’s grimy, shabby slums.

Few films have boiled my blood like Jeo Baby’s The Great Indian Kitchen, which documents the daily drudgery a nameless, newly-married young woman undergoes as patriarchy claims another soul. Every single day, it’s the same routine. She cooks and serves all the meals, sweeps and mops the floor, washes the utensils and the clothes in a household whose men are only too happy to thrust down their ideas of a domestic goddess and shun any external assistance – help or home appliances. What plays out is a portrait of misery in monotony, imagine a reverse Perfect Days, wherein director Wim Wenders discovers poetry in the fixed pattern of a toilet cleaner in Tokyo as he goes about his daily chores and banal schedule across a gentle, meditative rhythm.