Hindi Medium(2017): Irrfan Khan questions the educational system in our country whereby children are inducted into posh English-medium schools only after a ridiculous amount of time money and energy is invested into ensuring the child’s future.
Irrfan + Social Issue, bound to work. He is known to be a thinking actor with very definite views of politics and culture.The trauma that parents face is here alchemized into something smile-inducing and heartwarming, something quite magical in its ability to hit us where it hurts the most without damaging our sense of self-worth.Not that director Saket Choudhary trivializes the pain of parenting as it crosses the hurdles of schooling protocol.
Saket’s earlier two films the delightful Pyar Ke Side Effects and the equally delightful follow-up Shaadi Ke Side Effects revealed a mature though not a self-conscious pamphleteering social commentator with his fingers firmly on the pulse of contemporary issues. If Saket could make Mallika Sherawat remove her lingerie on screen without making us flinch he could also get away with Vidya Balan trying to pass off her husband’s child as her lover’s just to get even.
To his credit in Hindi Medium director Saket Chowdhary does not allow proceedings to get preachy screechy or downright hysterical. Most issue-based films can’t help lecturing down on the audience. Saket eases you into the life of a terribly endearing couple—lovable with all their whims excesses and fancies, armaan and Armanis played by Irrfan Khan and Saba Qamar . Together, Irrfan and Saba make the couple’s journey through the amazing contradiction and anomalies of the schooling system look not only credible and real but also very engaging.The writing is sharp-witted and the verbal exchanges are topped with an extra layer of spice just to drive in the point.
Irrfan looks so married to Saba it is not funny. His physical cravings and his ceaseless adoration of a wife who is often unreasonable, stubborn and manipulative, are remarkably subdued yet savage. The way he picks on her words to get his way in an argument, or inversely the way she manipulates his thoughts and words to her own advantage are lingering evidence of some slyly skilled writing that secretes wisdom about marital tricks that couples play on one another not to betray or cheat on the spouse. But just to keep the spirits high in marriage.
And watch out for the grossly underused monstrously talented Deepal Dobriyal. His turn as an economically challenged but forever cheerful parent would make the most frosty heart melt.
Ditto the film. Hindi Medium is never weighed down by tedium. It breezes through a difficult satirical terrain with a nose for the sunnier side of everyday drudgery.
It would be unfair to reveal more in this astutely woven yarn on the adventures of a rather wise child’s parents in gyan-dom. Suffice it to say, director Saket Choudhary is all through on firm ground as he negotiates his way through the contradictory pulls and pushes of an education system that fosters duplicity and encourages complicity with corrupt elements.
The incidents and anecdotes fill up the spaces not just in the narrative but also in the audiences’ hearts.
While Irrfan is in fine fettle, making light of and shining bright on what is essentially a very serious social issue,and displaying comic timing that Govinda would envy(if only he was around to envy anyone) Saba Qamar succeeds in being her very accomplished co-star’s support system without sweating it out in the dramatic scenes.But her presence is not as bankable as one expected. Nonetheless she holds her place in front of the bang-on Khan. And that’s saying a lot.
Among the female actors it’s the neglected Tillotama Shome who shines as a school-admission counselor. Her attitude of superciliousness towards the couple from Chandni Chowk who have migrated to Vasant Vihar to seem elitist, is deliciously vituperative.But Amrita Singh as an evil school principal hyperventilates through a sketchy role.
Also, while we are on the female characters, why is the actress Swati Das playing Deepak Dobriyal’s wife pasted with black polish? Isn’t this stereotyping of the poor as darkskinned out of character in a film that successfully demolishes many sacred cows and wholeheartedly questions the imbalances in our social and educational system with a hefty dose of humanism and humour?
Hindi Medium is a well-told parable of middleclass aspirations, scattered with moments that every parents would recognize with a combination of pleasure and dread. It is a solid weekend entertainer with a message for every parent who has ever suffered the traumatic jitters of preparing to get a child admitted into school. Hindi Medium has balls and long legs.
Dear Maya(2017) : First things first. Dear Maya is a dear little gem of a film that you would want to hold close to your heart.As debutant director Sunaina Bhantangar charts a course through the heart of her beautiful protagonist Maya, the narrative tugs at your heartstrings without being manipulative or excessively maudlin.
Among the many aspects of the film that left me deeply moved is its controlled emotion projection. This could have been an overwhelming story of a beautiful lonely woman and her faithful washed-out woman-Friday fading away in her self-created isolation in the anonymity of a hill station(something like our Bollywood diva Rekha ,if she were not a celebrity) until, one fine day, when she is suddenly jostled into a delayed blossoming.
Manisha Koirala plays the wilting flower with heartbreaking integrity. She is a feast for the senses. This film is remarkable for how capably it uses this actress’ beauty and the feast.
Though Manisha’s Maya is central to the plot and her name is mentioned in almost every scene,director Sunaina Bhatnagar uses Manisha incandescent physical presence sparingly.This is a wise narrative device. Every time she is on screen Manisha leaves you craving for more, not only because she is exceptionally watchable but also because her character is written as an epitome of enigma. The more we are told about her the more we want to know.
The narrative works on two basic human emotions: hope and guilt. While Manisha’s Maya erupts in belated bliss after she receives love letters from an unknown admirer, the two young female protagonists Anna(Madiha Imam) and Ira(Shreya Chaudhary) are the unlikely catalysts for Maya’s metamorphosis.
Dear Maya is as much Maya’s story as it is about the two fun-seeking girls who blunder into a lifelong regret and guilt. With remarkable restrain this little film with a big heart tells us how a moment of judgment-error in life can effect and change lives forever.
While Manisha owns the film in every frame that she occupies(the camera has always been in love with her though she has not always reciprocated that love) Madiha Imam as the guilt-ridden Anna is a significant find. A younger , more sorted version of Anushka Sharma, Madiha takes Anna’s character through a memorable labyrinth of emotions all delicately threaded together in a stirring motion of frozen thoughts.
While we witness Maya’s journey into self-actualization we also see Anna’s friendship with her best friend Ira go through its upheavals. Apart from one lengthy confrontation/breakdown sequence which both the young actresses are unable to handle, Madiha Imam and Shreya Chaudhary lend a supple tonal honesty to the proceedings.
But make no mistake. Manisha Koirala own Dear Maya. As she transforms from a repressed woman in Simla to a self-dependent life-loving diva in Delhi, Manisha again confirms her place among the greats.
Towards the end filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra shows up in a surprise role lending credence to the growing feeling in the audience that Dear Maya is a sum-total of far greater human traits than hope and guilt. What this film says about a live well-lived is so much larger than its immediate concerns. Dear God, don’t let Dear Maya drown in the din of the Baahubali , Baywatch & Wonder Woman.
