Tusshar Sasi

Imagine two women in a lonely house with a large yard that benefits no one else. Would the authorities care about their two votes? In Sajin Baabu’s abstractly titled Theatre: The Myth of Reality, this is how a discussion unfolds among locals in Kerala’s backwaters as they talk about the isolated lives of a spinster named Meera (Rima Kallingal) and her mother Sharadamma (Sarasa Balussery). Their lifestyle is peculiar and far removed from the mainland. In the agriculture-based ecosystem they’ve built for themselves, the duo is surrounded by a serpent temple (kaavu) where a prayer must be performed every day.

It’s 2025, and Bollywood is still peddling the trope of two youngsters pretending to be lovers just to make their exes jealous. Shashank Khaitan’s Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari is a remake of a remake of a hundred other remakes. And no, it’s not a spoiler to say Sunny will end up with Tulsi. So how do you sell it? Shoot a string of glossy music videos and hope nobody notices the lack of effort.

There’s a long stretch, or one that feels long, in Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound, where the leading men, Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa), aren’t talking to each other. They’ve fought; one hit the other over a competitive exam result where millions appeared for a thousand odd vacancies. Shoaib is Muslim, Chandan is Dalit, both from the working class with zero privileges. And once the men reunite, it is as if sunshine returns to the film. That is the power of screen friendships, I guess. Thanks to my newfound obsession with Sholay, I could not help drawing an unlikely parallel: this duo is the Jai–Veeru of our times.

Most of us grew up with elders who constantly chimed, “Do not waste food.” On one hand, it was the sentiment that a wasted serving could have fed someone poor. On the other hand, they knew the effort it takes to harvest a basket full of cauliflowers or tomatoes. Having grown up (and past these ideas), we now casually discard food if the preparation isn’t to our liking. But where do the raw materials come from? After all, a typical Indian dish requires ten ingredients, including oil. In Subhash Kapoor’s Jolly LLB 3, we take a riveting trip down those lanes – into the thankless lives of Indian farmers, steeped in poverty and systemic neglect. As we know, Jolly LLB 3 is a franchise film where a not-so-smart lawyer (Arshad Warsi and/or Akshay Kumar) takes on the system and earns justice for a needy person or community. Also, the guys share a common name. Jolly No. 1 (Arshad Warsi) and Jolly No. 2 (Akshay Kumar) practice in a Delhi court, and their squabbles over hijacking each other’s clients are a running joke.

A pair of identical twins with clashing personalities, a perplexed mother, an absent father, a lover who’s a dancer, and a snake-like villain. No, this isn’t the setup for a ’70s masala potboiler. It is Anurag Kashyap’s latest directorial, Nishaanchi. And why not? If anyone outside of Farah Khan can claim to be a true disciple of the Salim–Javed brand of Bollywood masala, it’s Kashyap. The difference is that Kashyap didn’t grow up in town-side Bombay. His films, including this one, carry the flavors of the heartland while staying rooted in Bollywood idioms. Despite kitsch not being his forte, Nishaanchi is his most formulaic film since Mukkabaaz. The question is whether his 2-hour 56-minute gamble pays off.

“It’s a culture that you see in the cities. You know, it’s something the rich people are into. It’s a disease.” You’ve probably heard these lines from people dismissing queer life as a mere lifestyle choice for the wealthy. Director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Marathi-language film Sabar Bonda laughs at these judgments. At one point, in the wee hours, we see a strange man hop over to Balya’s house on a bike. His parents wonder why the guy never shows up during the day. He promises they’ll wrap it up quickly, and when Balya denies, he speeds away like it never mattered. It’s easy to see why this is a very real experience for many queer people in rural India.

There’s a point in Tango Malhar where it stops feeling like a promotional piece for the Argentinian dance form it’s named after. That moment arrives when siblings Malhar (Nitesh Kamble) and Rani (Kriti Vishwanathan) are secretly filmed while passionately practicing tango in a secluded building. In Saya Date’s film, this scandalous act carries the potential to ignite controversy, challenging the sanctity of familial bonds. Where will the story go from here? That question becomes the film’s most compelling suspense. Tango Malhar opens with Malhar, a 20-something autorickshaw driver, grooving to Indian hip-hop on his earphones. He lives with his widowed mother and school-going younger sister in a cramped city home. Early in the film, we see Rani’s love for dance and her brother’s latent rhythm. A man of few words, Malhar is still searching for purpose when tango unexpectedly enters his life.

All it took for Raam Reddy was one film and a non-professional cast to get noticed by film pundits globally. Century Gowda, in his stunning debut Thith,i remains an unforgettable figure in modern Indian cinema. Nearly a decade later, Reddy is back with his second feature. It’s called Jugnuma (The Fable in English). Far more refined in scale and featuring some of the country’s finest actors, the film is nothing like the filmmaker’s maiden outing. If Thithi’s rural Karnataka setting felt as if it were made by someone who grew up in those surroundings, Jugnuma radiates an anecdotal quality. Set in the Himalayan foothills, Reddy’s new film takes us to 1989 amid apple orchards, wildfires, an Indigenous community, and a blue-collar clan in awe of their employer. Jugnuma opens with a man named Dev (Manoj Bajpayee) brushing his teeth in the morning. He interacts with his family (in English) and the staff (in Hindi). Within minutes, he heads straight to the outhouse, straps on a pair of wings, and leaps off – inviting no adverse reactions from anyone. So, if normal mortals take a morning stroll, Dev takes off to fly in the open sky.