Udita Jhunjhunwala

Writer-director Shuchi Talati’s debut feature is a simmering and sexually tense coming of age drama. Set in a boarding school, the story is centred around Mira, a school topper, head prefect and teacher’s pet. She’s driven to excel and considers herself the model student, upholder of school rules and moral gatekeeper. So, it’s confusing for the obedient and righteous Mira to be faced with challenges outside of the curriculum and to realise that book-learned knowledge might be no match against street smarts, life experience and generational patriarchal conditioning.

The second season of the Prime Video series Bandish Bandits opens in Jodhpur, three months after Radhe (Ritwik Bhowmik) has been crowned Sangeet Samrat. In the previous season, battle lines were drawn between rival gharanas represented by Radhe and his grandfather Radhemohan (Naseeruddin Shah) on the one side and Radhemohan’s estranged son Digvijay (Atul Kulkarni) on the other. With the passing of the patriarch, the responsibility for the Rathod gharana rests on Radhe’s shoulders. Radhe is also contending with new and confusing feelings after Tammana (Shreya Chaudhry) walks away from their fusion band Bandish Bandits, and her relationship with him, to find her own voice.

Being a child star is not a thing to envy. Judy, a musical drama, is both a warm and loving tribute to the actor and singer Judy Garland as well as a cautionary tale about the pressures and impact of celebrity. Born Frances Ethel Gumm, Garland worked as an actor, dancer and singer for 45 of the 47 years she lived. The film opens with a 14-year-old Judy (Darci Shaw) being cast to play what would become the iconic part of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. The pressure of early stardom and humiliation fuelled insecurities as a harsh studio executive listed out her physical flaws. He described her as above average but exceptional because of her singing voice. A studio minder offered her pills to suppress her appetite and pills to help her sleep at night.

In the late 1970s, the king of Bhutan coined the term “gross national happiness". GNH parameters are used to measure progress, well-being and happiness, placing their importance over economic pursuits alone. This programme has been pivotal in shaping development policies and governance in Bhutan, a landlocked nation in eastern Himalayas that is often ranked as one of the happiest in the world. Happiness surveyor Amber Kumar Gurung of the Happiness Centre is the subject of a new documentary, Agent of Happiness (in competition at the MAMI Mumbai film festival 2024).

Even before a gun is fired or a car destroyed in director Rohit Shetty’s latest cop-and-terrorist saga, a disclaimer is read out in two languages—about mentions of a Hindu god and respect for beliefs. When you consider that Singham Again is built on the bedrock of the epic, Ramayana—with Ajay Devgn’s Bajirao Singham likened to Lord Rama—, the disclaimer seems like a safe bet.

In 2007, Priyadarshan directed Vidya Balan as the ghostly apparition Manjulika in Bhool Bhulaiyaa, with Aneez Bazmee taking over the reins of this comedy-horror franchise in 2022. Akshay Kumar was replaced by Kartik Aaryan, who played Ruhaan—a charlatan masquerading as a psychic, who communicates with and channels spirits. Tabu stepped into the dual roles of the trapped spirit, Manjulika, and her twin sister, Anjulika.

In the first season of the ZEE5 series Mithya, Hindi professor Juhi Adhikari (Huma Qureshi) was locked in a dangerous battle with student Rhea Rajguru (Avantika Dassani) after she failed her the young woman for plagiarism and branded her a cheat. The entitled daughter of a tea estate owner and college trustee, Rhea became obsessed with seeking vengeance, sometimes with violent results.

The year is 1997. The setting is Rishikesh. It’s a time just before mobile phones, when DVDs were still predominant. Writer-director Raaj Shaandilyaa’s film opens with a shoddily executed computer graphic of a train hurtling towards a forlorn man on the tracks. This is the eponymous Vicky, played by Rajkummar Rao. It’s much like Rao’s year which has been speeding along strongly, but will eventually have to come to a halt. Unfortunately, the Rao train has been derailed by this most unintelligible 152-minute-long romantic comedy that is built around a slim plot line.