Guild Reviews
Sthal (A Match)
Drama (Marathi)
It chronicles the experiences of a young woman yearning to determine her own future in a world where patriarchal traditions deprive women of agency and arranged marriage is presented as the only option for self-betterment.
Cast:
Nandini Chikte, Taranath Khiratkar, Sangita Sonekar, Suyog Dhawas, Sandip Somalkar
Director:
Jayant Digambar Somalkar
Writer:
Jayant Digambar Somalkar
Marathi Film Shining Again
Sun, March 9 2025
(Writing for The Common Man Speaks)
Subtle yet powerful critique of forced arranged marriages of girls
Sun, March 9 2025
India is obsessed with marriages. Weddings take place all over the country in different regions and among different communities and they are celebrated like anything. However, even in today’s times in rural India, the idea of a girl’s forced arranged marriage still exists. Filmmaker Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s Sthal (A Match) boldly highlights this social evil. The movie takes place in a village in Maharashtra named Dongargaon and it revolves around Savita Daulatrao Wandhare (Nandini Chikte). She is in her Final year of Bachelor of Arts course and her specialization subject is Sociology. Her father (Taranath Khiratkar) and mother (Sangita Sonekar) wish to get her married off soon but she wants to study further.
A sharp critique of traditional matchmaking practice
Sat, March 8 2025
As the world customarily deliberates on a woman’s place in society this week, writer-director Jayant Somalkar shows us the mirror through a deceptively simple take on the patriarchal roots of the traditional matchmaking process and the attendant social churn in our villages. Structured like a coming-of-age story of a village girl struggling to find her way out of the dragnet of gender roles and societal expectations, protagonist Savita’s tenacity and quiet rebellion pierce our consciousness. Seen from a girl’s point of view, Sthal’s scope is not limited to the humiliation a girl and her family endure in finding a suitable match through an arranged marriage. It deconstructs its cultural context, its normalisation, and its consequences. When news pages bring the rise in the number of farmer suicides and the sale of mobile phones in rural Maharashtra into our living rooms, one misses the social pressures and moral conditioning that pushes a peasant to the brink and reduce jobless youth to data.
Kingston
Horror, Adventure (Tamil)
A fisherman is determined to break a curse that has plagued his village for centuries.
Cast:
G. V. Prakash Kumar, Divyabharathi, Chetan, Elango Kumaravel, Sabumon Abdusamad
Director:
Kamal Prakash
Writer:
Kamal Prakash
A promising sea creature feature watered down by its embellishments
Sun, March 9 2025
There is a quaint Christian fishing hamlet. There is a raging sea at their footsteps. The villagers haven’t gone fishing in their waters for over two decades. Every single person who has gone out to the sea has come back dead. There is a curse. There is a reasoning. There are overarching themes involving regret, retribution, and redemption. There is a romance track that, thankfully, exists in the periphery. There is a to-and-fro between timelines that moves from the 80s to the 2020s to the 2010s to the 60s to the 80s, and you know the drill. There are multiple backstories for each principal player of this story. There is a folklore. There is a fantasy element, and then… there’s a sea creature. And yet, for the longest time, GV Prakash Kumar‘s latest film, Kingston, seems to move nowhere, and this proves to be the film’s biggest undoing.
Gentlewoman
Drama (Tamil)
Errors spun by the threads of kinship, the lives of two women unfold, each tale revealed through her own eyes.In this story, the bond between a married woman and her kitchen becomes central to a dark tale of betrayal. Her husband’s mysterious disappearance reveals his affair with an unmarried client, sparking a tense investigation led by the client, who grows suspicious of the wife’s seemingly detached behaviour. While authorities suspect he fled due to financial troubles, the wife seems to know a deeper, nal truth about his fate. In her mind, men who leave women in anguish deserve no farewell.
Cast:
Lijomol Jose, Hari Krishnan, Losliya Mariyanesan
Director:
Joshua Sethuraman
Lijomol and Losliya anchor a chilling and compelling tale that is rough around the edges
Sun, March 9 2025
Gentlewoman starts off as a tale about a gentle woman. She wakes up. She makes coffee. She has her bath. She wears her saree. She cooks. She packs. Her husband wakes up, prays to God, and gets ready for work. He reads philosophy. On the outset, he is that perfect husband. But scratch just a couple of layers, we understand that he has made her a creature of habit. She wakes up, makes coffee, has her bath, wears her saree, cooks, packs, and also has to stand in the balcony and bid him goodbye as he leaves for work. But what does he do for her? Well, never once in the film does he do anything for her. And this is not registered by an elaborate scene, but just a simple callback that is effective and subtle. Probably why when director Joshua Sethuraman suddenly decides to get all preachy and rub our faces in the film’s ideology with verbose monologues, and random conversations that feel out of place in this world, it feels like a let-down.
Lijomol Jose’s Crime Thriller Is Nearly Brilliant
Sat, March 8 2025
Gentlewoman is one of those films that leaves you with the frustration that rises out of lost potential. It could have been the perfect free-hand circle, if not for the last wayward bit. The circle is not all that misshapen, but you can’t look past the botch made either because when things are going well, it is seamless, until it is not. The mistakes, even though just a few, become conspicuous when everything else is perfect. Now, the film, directed by debutant Joshua Sethuraman, is good. The lamentation is about how it could have been great as it kicks off with a brilliant premise and subtlety that is rare in crime thrillers of Tamil cinema.
Mithya
Drama (Kannada)
'Mithya' is a journey alongside Mithun, an eleven-year-old, coming to terms with the sudden loss of his parents. Things turn gloomier as their families squabble over his custody, even as questions over the nature of his Father's death remain unanswered. We walk in step with Mithun/Mithya's tottering feet, as they search for solid ground. Can a new house be home, can friendships be forged again or is it all just a search for something long gone?
Cast:
Athish S Shetty, Prakash Thuminad, Roopa Varkady
Director:
Sumanth Bhat
Writer:
Sumanth Bhat
A poignant drama that closes with a nail-biting finish
Sun, March 9 2025
Mithya is an intimate story of a young boy struggling to make sense of his life, which has been shattered into countless pieces after his parents pass away. It marks director Sumanth Bhat’s feature film debut. Previously, he helmed the Kannada web series Ekam, also co-produced by Rakshit Shetty. Mithya sheds light on the internal turmoil of an 11-year-old boy, Mithun. Taken in by his aunt’s family after his mother dies by suicide — leaving him and his younger sister orphaned — he is uprooted from Mumbai, where he was born and raised, and placed in the slow, quiet countryside of Udupi. He prefers to be called Mithya, but adjusting to his new reality is far from easy.
A Coming-Of-Rage Classic About Lost Innocence
Sat, March 8 2025
How much does a young boy have to go through to be allowed the freedom to have an emotional breakdown? When we first meet Mithya (Athish Shetty), what we see is his back turned towards us as he travels on a train from somewhere to somewhere else. We later learn that he’s not travelling out of choice. He’s being displaced from his home in Mumbai to Udipi in Southern Karnataka where he will live with his uncle, aunt and their two daughters. Like Mithya, the film about him too has its back turned towards us. It’s not a film that grants you the solace of having empathised with its broken protagonist. Instead, it reveals these broken pieces so sparsely that we feel as lost and helpless as he does.
(Writing for OTT Play)
The Many Shades Of Grief
Fri, March 7 2025
Many a time in Sumanth Bhat’s Mithya, conditioned by today’s happenings and a generally unsafe world, the stomach knots up with uncertainty, wondering what would befall a child that seems to trust adults. You heave a sigh of relief, only to realise that the child can still be injured through other means — what he hears and how he’s treated — especially when he’s too young to remember it all, but also too old to forgetfully. Snatches of these conversations linger and play on in his head like scabs being yanked off.
Bada Naam Karenge
Drama, Family (Hindi)
Rishabh and Surbhi, two young individuals, find themselves at the crossroads of an arranged marriage. The story unfolds in two timelines: one in Mumbai, in the past, and another in Madhya Pradesh, where their families meet. In Mumbai, they find themselves alone in his room due to the lockdown, creating a pivotal moment in their relationship. In the present, Rishabh is hesitant to reveal his past with Surbhi to their families, his being a much more traditional one, fearing disapproval.
Cast:
Ritik Ghanshani, Ayesha Kaduskar, Kanwaljit Singh, Alka Amin, Jameel Khan
Director:
Palash Vaswani
Writer:
Vidit Tripathi
दिल के छज्जे पे चढ़ेंगे, ‘बड़ा नाम करेंगे’
Thu, March 6 2025
सोनी लिव पर आई नौ एपिसोड की इस वेब-सीरिज़ के पांचवें एपिसोड के अंत में जब नायक ऋषभ नायिक सुरभि से कहता है-‘मुझ से शादी कर लो प्लीज़’ तो उसकी आंखें नम होती हैं। यह सुनते हुए सुरभि की भी आंखें नम होती हैं। इस सीन को यहीं पॉज़ कर दीजिएगा और गौर कीजिएगा कि एक हल्की-सी नमी आपकी आंखों में भी होगी। अब याद कीजिएगा कि आपकी आंखें इससे पहले के एपिसोड्स में भी कुछ जगह पनियाई होंगी और ध्यान रखिएगा, अभी आगे भी आपकी आंखों में कई बार नमी आएगी। बल्कि कुछ एक बार तो यह नमी झरने का रूप भी लेना चाहेगी। जी हां, यह इस कहानी की ताकत है, उस सिनेमा की ताकत है जो ऐसी कहानी को आपके सामने इस तरह से लाता है कि आप, आप नहीं रहते बल्कि इस कहानी के किरदार हो जाते हैं, कभी मुंबई, कभी उज्जैन तो कभी रतलाम हो जाते हैं।
Old Fashioned Storytelling
Sat, February 8 2025
It’s the 90s world of Rajshri. A mansion. A joint family. A starchy patriarch/matriarch whose word is writ, everybody else shivers, cowers before the family dictator. Karan Johar put Amitabh Bachchan in that stern position in K3G and reversed the gender to give Jaya Bachchan the same unbending top place in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Step into the sprawling mansion of the Rathi parivar in Ratlam where Taoji (Kanwaljit Singh) is the stiff principled head of a large joint family. Like Karan Johar’s joint family in RARKPK, the Rathis too are renowned for their famous mithai. But Taoji’s rules are anything but meetha. More than four decades ago, there was a film called Ek Hi Bhool (1981). Those same 80s sentiments and ambience may be transplanted into the Rathi mansion and labelled, Ek Hi Jhooth. Taoji can never forgive a lie. His sister (Anjana Sukhani) is still paying the price for having fallen in love with someone outside their community. ‘It wasn’t about the community, it was her lying about it that Taoji cannot forgive,’ is underlined a couple of times. And in that claustrophobically tradition-bound ambience, the family is eternally grateful to Fufaji (Rajesh Tailang) who did them all a big favour for saving their reputation and marrying the tainted sister, now referred to as “Bua”.
Rajshri's OTT Debut Takes Aim At Modern Romance, Remains Old-Fashioned
Fri, February 7 2025
We don’t usually see love stories on film or OTT much these days, so our eyes were peeled for Rajshri Production’s Bada Naam Karenge. The ambitious SonyLIV series unfolds like a feature film rather than a series. It’s easy to get invested in the romance between Surbhi (Ayesha Kaduskar) and Rishabh (Ritik Ghanshani) in a story set in Madhya Pradesh. But once we get to the heart of the matter, Bada Naam Karenge becomes jumbled under the weight of so many characters and remains a bit dated. The romance features two families: the wealthy Rathis of Ratlam and the middle-class Guptas of Ujjain. A possible rishta is floated between Rishabh Rathi and Surbhi Gupta. As the families explore their union through an arranged marriage, the audience learns about a hidden secret between the two. Will Rishabh and Surbhi get together, or will the expectations of their families get in the way? The story and screenplay of Bada Naam Karenge has been penned by S Manasvi. Vidit Tripathi has also helped out with the screenplay and co-written the dialogues. Moving to the past and returning to the present, the initial batch of episodes holds promise as the young couple’s story goes from enemies to lovers. Once the large cast of supporting players gets involved, it feels too behind the times. The main conflict between the two families also gets dragged out over the last few episodes, only to be quickly resolved over a big emotional scene.
A Complete Unknown
Drama, Music (English)
New York, early 1960s. Against the backdrop of a vibrant music scene and tumultuous cultural upheaval, an enigmatic 19-year-old from Minnesota arrives in the West Village with his guitar and revolutionary talent, destined to change the course of American music.
Cast:
Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Scoot McNairy
Director:
James Mangold
The Inscrutable Bob Dylan Remains As Elusive as Ever
Thu, March 6 2025
The first time we meet Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) in A Complete Unknown, he’s uncomplainingly laying in the back of a wagon amongst a pile of luggage. He’s just hitched a ride to New York City to see his hero, folk musician Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), who has been hospitalised after being diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. Dylan overhears an impassioned discussion trying to determine if Guthrie is a folk or a country musician. “There’s no need to box him,” one of them says. It’s 1961 and a particularly tense period in America, as the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) is summoning people for their alleged communist ties. The celebrities of Hollywood are understandably first in line, just like the musicians of the time like Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who was critical of the American government. Social justice is becoming a street-side topic among many, as America is sinking deeper into the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement is picking up steam. Two years later, a president will be assassinated during a motorcade, fuelling the paranoia of the public and future governments alike.
Mazaka
Action, Comedy, Romance (Telugu)
The path to true love does not run smoothly when a father and son seek marriage at the same time.
Cast:
Sundeep Kishan, Rao Ramesh, Ritu Varma, Anshu, Murali Sharma
Director:
Trinadha Rao Nakkina
Writer:
Prasanna Kumar Bejawada
Occasionally entertaining, but mostly middling
Mon, March 3 2025
Reviewing a film often involves stating the obvious: an interesting or amusing idea does not always translate into an engaging cinematic experience. Yet, after watching director Trinadha Rao Nakkina’s Telugu comedy Mazaka, written by Prasanna Kumar Bezawada, it feels necessary to reiterate this point. The writer-director duo take a premise with potential for outrageous humour but dilute it with predictable tropes, making the film tedious. The saving grace is the performances of Sundeep Kishan, Rao Ramesh, and Ritu Varma, though even they can only do so much to redeem the narrative. The film opens with a morning walker discovering a trail of red leading to two men washed up on Visakhapatnam beach. Alarmed, he alerts the police, only for the inspector (Ajay) to find that the men — Krishna (Sundeep Kishan) and his father Ramana (Rao Ramesh) — are not injured but simply hungover. The red stain, in fact, comes from a packet of avakaya (mango pickle) in their shirt pockets. The inspector, who is struggling with writer’s block while working on a novel, takes an interest in their story. The absurdity of the situation sets the tone for mindless fun and signals to the audience not to take anything too seriously — or ask too many questions.
The Brutalist
Drama (English)
Escaping post-war Europe, visionary architect László Toth arrives in America to rebuild his life. On his own in a strange new country, a wealthy industrialist recognizes his talent. But power and legacy come at a heavy cost...
Cast:
Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy
Director:
Brady Corbet
Writer:
Mona Fastvold
Life and death of the American dream
Mon, March 3 2025
In a short epilogue, The Brutalist finally shows us László Toth’s buildings. Brady Corbet’s film presents as a given that Toth is a genius architect of the Bauhaus school, but we are only shown one of his creations—a library—in full right up till the final 10 minutes. The format in which they’re presented is strange: a showreel for a biennale that looks like it’s shot on cheap video, with cheesy transitions. A film with startling pristine images spends its last moments looking like DTV. It’s a strange end to the film – and that’s without even getting into the whole Israel of it all. The Brutalist hits you several times with shots of roads and rail tracks zipping by, as seen from the front of a car or train. If the intention is to have the viewer recall the opening of Lawrence of Arabia, it worked on me. Corbet’s film has that David Lean sprawl, certainly in terms of runtime (202 minutes), but also in the ambition and density of its storytelling.
(Writing for Deccan Herald)
Hypnotic tale of art, power, and betrayal
Sun, March 2 2025
If you saw the poster for The Brutalist, featuring Adrien Brody squinting his eyes, staring straight at you in a low-angle shot, cigarette in mouth, with streaks of fire flying across, you might take him for an Italian-American gangster. Especially since The Brutalist sounds like the perfect title for a gangster flick, set in late 1950s America, adding to its vibe as the ultimate land of freedom and wild wealth. But The Brutalist isn’t that. It’s about architecture — big, heavy, concrete-and-steel stuff. These imposing structures mirror the post-World War II psyche. For those untouched by the war’s direct traumas, these brutalist buildings might feel cold and uninviting, even ugly. But for those who have endured the dehumanising horrors of war, they represent something deeply intimate.
Ek Badnaam Aashram
Drama, Crime (Hindi)
A duplicitous, aashram based, Indian Godman's good deeds serve activities criminal and unholy, such as rapes, murders, drugs, vote bank politics and forced male emasculation. The law and a few crusaders investigate to bring him to account.
Cast:
Bobby Deol, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Darshan Kumaar, Aaditi Pohankar, Tridha Choudhury
Director:
Prakash Jha
Baba black sheep, and more of the same
Sun, March 2 2025
Ever since ‘Aashram’ dropped in 2020, both the director, Prakash Jha, and Bobby Deol, who plays the devious Baba Nirala, captured our imagination. Indeed, the perils of a successful show are that it often gets extended into many seasons, elongated and stretched way beyond the story actually calls for or deserves. Thus, the powerful and impactful show about the nexus between fake gurus, politics and power did get diluted in between as it offered more of the same in the intervening seasons. But, as ‘Season 3 Part Two’ drops, our worst fears that it will continue to go round in circles are given a slight reprieve. Sure enough, his victim, Pammi (Aaditi Pohankar), who is on the run, manages to nail the Baba. But before you can even heave a sigh of relief, he and Bhupa (Chandan Roy Sanyal), his irascible deputy, once again outwit her and have her jailed instead.
Aghathiyaa
Fantasy, Horror, Adventure (Tamil)
Things go awry when a haunted mansion is opened as a tourist attraction by Aghathiyan leading to the unraveling of the dark history behind the mansion's previous occupant.
Cast:
Jiiva, Raashii Khanna, Arjun Sarja, Edward Sonnenblick, Matilda
Director:
Pa. Vijay
Writer:
Pa. Vijay
Jivaa And Raashii Khanna’s Film Is A Grand But Confusing Tale With Perilous Ideas
Sat, March 1 2025
Abrodolph Lincoler is one of the outrageously funny characters in the American animated series Rick And Morty’s hit episode Ricksy Business. He is a genetically engineered clone with the DNAs of Adolf Hitler and Abraham Lincoln. He is an experiment gone wrong. The idea was to create a more neutral ideological leader, but in reality, he ended up becoming a person with disoriented ideas. Sample one of his lines: “Prepared to be emancipated from your own inferior genes." He is a diabolical cocktail of ideas. Watching Aghathiyaa reminded me of this character as the film’s ideology is as confusing as Lincoler. On one hand, the film, directed by lyricist Pa Vijay, has Dravidian newspapers Kudiyarasu and Viduthalai as some product placements throughout, and at the same time, it is a propaganda film about Siddha medicine that would make Periyar turn in his grave.
Suzhal: The Vortex S02
Crime, Mystery (Tamil)
A minor girl goes missing in a small town in Tamilnadu and an investigation follows. A sub inspector investigating a missing girl's case in a uncovers some shocking revelations and dirty truths those threaten to shake up the cultural societal fabric.
Cast:
Kathir, Aishwarya Rajesh, Lal, Saravanan, Manjima Mohan
Director:
Bramma G
Writer:
Gayathri
(Writing for OTT Play)
Tightens Its Grip, But Loosens Its Edge
Sat, March 1 2025
At least two Tamil films that released in 1988 get a namedrop in the second season of Suzhal: The Vortex. They are Senthoora Poove and Agni Natchathiram. One is about a dying man who makes it his mission to save two young star-crossed lovers, which is a throwback to season one of Suzhal that unfolds around the death of one such pair. The second film is about parents and children, warts and all, which points to a theme in Suzhal’s second season— about father and mother figures, and their adopted sons and daughters. At the centre is the father, pointedly named Chellappa (Lal), a criminal lawyer known for his righteousness and sincerity, a darling of victims and survivors. There is also a mother with a fleeting appearance but otherworldly deeds and influence. It is a curious thing, those namedrops—one vaguely referring to a dance troupe named Senthoora Poove and the other directly invoking Mani Ratnam’s Agni Natchathiram and its unforgettable climax of strobe lights waltz. Later, the series invokes another 1988 Tamil film title.
A Decent Thriller Weighed Down By Convenient Writing
Fri, February 28 2025
Pushakar-Gayathri’s Suzhal: The Vortex Season 1 continues to be one of the very few Tamil web series that’s on par with the global standard of such long-form thrillers. It has set a high benchmark that even the second season of Suzhal: The Vortex also fails to reach. Yet, the new season, streaming on Amazon Prime Video still warrants a watch as it has a lot going on for it. While the problem with season 2, directed by Bramma G and Sarjun KM, is largely due to its predictability and convenient writing, it still holds your attention due to a few good streaks of brilliant writing.
This crime-drama is trapped in the vortex of cliches
Fri, February 28 2025
Director duo Pushkar and Gayatri were pioneers in making the Tamil web series space a flourishing one. Cashing in on the success of Suzhal - The Vortex, the makers created a sequel to it, which is currently streaming on Prime Video. Suzhal - The Vortex is one of the most celebrated web shows in Tamil. Has Suzhal - The Vortex 2 lived up to expectations? Let’s find out! Nandhini (Aishwarya Rajesh) is sentenced to jail after killing her abuser, while SI Chakravarthi aka Sakkarai (Karthir) is helping her from outside. He is also closely working with activist and lawyer Chellappa (Lal) to fight in court for Nandhini. However, Chellappa is found dead at his cottage with a gunshot to his forehead.
Machante Malakha
Family, Drama (Malayalam)
An over-affectionate wife and a husband, who tries hard to adjust with it.
Cast:
Soubin Shahir, Namitha Pramod, Dileesh Pothan, Manoj K U, Shanthi Krishna
Director:
Boban Samuel
Writer:
Ajish Thomas
A competition between regressive ideas and outdated filmmaking
Fri, February 28 2025
A certain machine-like uniformity marks the male and female characters in Boban Samuel’s Machante Malakha. While almost all the male characters are good-hearted and submissive, a majority of the female characters are scheming ones trying every trick in their book to make life difficult for the men around them. This unmissable pattern in the writing of the characters serves the purpose for which the film appears to have been made – to put into cinematic form the grievances of the men’s rights associations that have cropped up in recent times. Machante Malakha begins as a typical boy meets girl story, with Sajeevan (Soubin Shahir), a bus conductor, falling in love with Bijimol (Namitha Pramod), a regular passenger in the bus, after a series of fights. But the prologue to this love story, when a fellow bus conductor whom Sajeevan is in love with leaves him to get married to a rich man, signals the film’s intentions. Whether it be due to this underlying agenda of the film or plain bad writing, Bijimol is written with confusing character traits, changing her behaviour multiple times even within a single scene.