Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world
Four movies that I had seen last week made me remember the above quote this morning. And what better way than to spread joy by educating others!
I start with Sherni! Deep, deep respect to Vidya Balan and the director for making such a fabulous story where you end up feeling so sorry for the animals of our country! Politics, greed, sheer pig-headedness and ignorance all play an equal role in this ‘so-called’ man -animal conflict. One scene that was the most poignant of all from my perspective is when Vidya Balan is told that the tiger would want to move from this jungle to another but wouldn’t be able to do because of the huge mining belt. No chest-thumping dialogue, no closure to the conundrum. Mere showing of what exists.
Ahaan was another good movie. It dealt with two important issues of Down Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Anu is married to Ozzy, suffering from OCD. She talks with Ahaan and not talks down to him. She leaves him when he treats Ahaan badly and insults him. Ahaan is a friendly, kind soul despite his condition. How Ozzy learns to accept and see the good in Ahaan, while trying to work on his own marriage is the story all about. The only aspect I didn’t agree in the movie was the way the Psychologist tries to treat Ozzy from his OCD. Even the best of people avoid public toilet and to show that the only way to snap a person out of OCD is to make them ‘comfortable’ with the ‘uncomfortable’ is kind of silly. It is stretching the truth too far! Ahaan’s father is a typical parent who is unable to accept his child for being different.
Surfing the channel, I chanced upon the movie, If I stay. I am rather fond of the idea of ‘after life’ and ‘out of body’ experience. And I was hooked, so much so that when my son wanted to face time me, I told him sniffling, ” Give me ten!” A story where a happy family meets with a fatal accident that leaves three members out of four dead..and Mia the young girl has an out of body experience. The movie juxtaposes present with the past and we get to know aspects that make the movie worth watching. In one such conversation, Mia asks her father, a renowned drummer if he was happy leaving behind that life and take up a regular job. He says : “Most time we make choices..sometimes choices make us”. This sentence remains with me.
War movies never go out of fashion. When The Good Liar was recommended to me, I jumped at the chance. I usually avoid
reading the detailed plot before-hand, but, when the con-man Roy Courtnay seems to have his way with the recently widowed, Betty McLeish, worth millions, I wanted to reach into the screen to warn her and had a peek at the story line ! Despite that, I was in for some thrilling surprise. Fabulous acting, amazing setting but then you are so taken in by the plot then nothing else matters.
