Tusshar Sasi

If you grew up in a colony in a village or small town, chances are there was that one household you were asked to stay away from. You aren’t allowed to play with the children over there. The reason is a woman – usually very beautiful – who is believed to be a femme fatale. It’s all fully based on hearsay, and we get colourful stories of the woman’s tantalizing ways, whereas the householder is blissfully unaware. In Suresh Triveni’s Netflix Original film Maa Behen, we get a woman of this kind. Attractive, coquettish, and the object of every man’s fantasy (and every woman’s disdain), Rekha (Madhuri Dixit) is a mom to two firebrand girls, Jaya (Triptii Dimri) and Sushma (Dharna Durga). Together, they headline a wild and supremely entertaining feminist rib-tickler that would force you to exclaim, “Why is this not a series?”

Do you ever think of being correct, but not politically correct? That is, saying something aloud through any medium that might offend the majority despite being right in your stand. Anurag Kashyap’s Bandar spends its entire 2-hour odd runtime walking this dangerously slippery slope. It tells the story of a man wronged in the era of #MeToo, a movement that has rightfully brought justice to a lifetime of denial for countless survivors. The gender reversal makes the story a tad uncomfortable to endorse, though never difficult to empathize with.

Why would anyone name a cat Azaadi? Perhaps every time you call your companion animal by that name, you give voice to an ache to break free. At the heart of the Nepali-language film Shape of Momo is Bishnu’s (Gaumaya Gurung) tabby cat, named exactly that. Aazadi isn’t an animal protagonist so much as a metaphor for the film’s politics of gender. The family rues that they should have liked a tomcat instead because a female cat would keep having litters. While it’s a perfectly practical concern in a domestic setting, Tribeny Rai’s debut feature is also about a generational belief that a family is somehow incomplete without a son.

There’s a scene in The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagman where Jagdish alias Dadaji (Jackie Shroff) narrates what must be a superhero origin story. Dipu (Mihir Godbole), his grandson, is visibly appalled that the tale, however preposterous it may sound, contains no bombs, explosions, or gunfire. Of all things, it has orange candy. How ridiculous is that, asks the sharp kid, staring at his grandfather like a man completely out of touch with the times. The moment is amusing, but it also defines the spirit of Manish Saini’s film. In an era where children’s cinema has almost disappeared from theatres, replaced either by loud spectacle or violent and jingoistic content, The Great Grand Superhero arrives like a relic from another time. And yet, to call it “small” would be inaccurate.

“Everything is planned…” When Ajnabee had Bobby Deol exposing Akshay Kumar in a corny yet wildly entertaining climax, we watched with amusement while tapping our feet to an infectious Anu Malik tune. It was never meant to feel intelligent. The same planning by a sharp-minded person made the Malayalam film Drishyam a national sensation. Georgekutty (Mohanlal) put Malayalam cinema on the national movie map, perhaps for the first time in history. Shockingly enough, Drishyam 3, the sequel to Drishyam 2, finds its tension in spontaneity and unpredictability, not foolproof planning. The question is: are we ready for this version of Georgekutty?

Love stories must return to Bollywood. In an era of toxic masculinity and mind-numbing violence that dominate the box office today, the soothing familiarity of the romantic films of the late ’90s and early 2000s seems like an inviting proposition. Additionally, a millennial like me would want Dharma Productions to support this cause along with Yash Raj Films for simply having set romance ideals through their films. I could sense that from my smile when the opening credits of Chand Mera Dil flashed Karan Johar’s name. The floodgates of movie memories opened until the last slate revealed the director’s name: Vivek Soni. Could he do a decent romance, never mind cult-worthy?

When Krishnadas Murali’s feature debut Bharathanatyam came out in 2024, my immediate question was straightforward: how does this family sustain even a modest lifestyle? I couldn’t tell what anyone in this crowded house did for a living, especially since times were so uncertain. But as the movie went on, that worry went away and was replaced by a growing interest in how normal and strange people live together in a typical Malayali home. With Bharathanatyam 2 Mohiniyattam, the filmmaker dives deep into that chaos to revel hard in its absurdities. The result? A sequel that is richer, zanier, and mightily confident in its skin.

At one point around its midpoint, Bhooth Bangla drops a romantic song without any context. People walk out as if their bladders would burst if they stayed a minute longer. I could almost feel my eardrums burst from a song so grating, paired with a couple that shares negative screen chemistry. Yet that is not why I felt bad for the half of the crowd that did not return. Ironically, that is exactly where the film becomes a wee bit tolerable. Do not expect much, but the least the Priyadarshan film manages in its second half is to stop being annoying.