35/14
The first Indian film to be screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 30 years
Line of Events
In Mumbai, nurse Prabha’s routine is thrown into disarray when she receives an unexpected gift from her ex-husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a place in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. This film is made with the explicit or calculated intention of “baiting” film festivals, awards and perhaps the Oscars, it is designed to tick all the boxes that Academy voters traditionally appreciate.
There is a hidden intensity to the characters that has been carefully hidden and expressed in a less direct manner
The entire film is a case study in awards bait – you have the tragic setting, the forced over-the-top subtle emotional moments, the “complex” moral decisions and the classic tropes of sacrifice, tradition and liberation. The film has understated bravado and subtle theatricality, but in a way that is not too obvious or over the top. The entire film is a case study in Oscar bait—you have the tragic setting, the over-the-top emotional moments, the “complex” moral decisions, and the classic tropes of sacrifice, tradition, and liberation.
But none of it feels real
The characters are just cogs in a machine designed to win awards, not fully realized individuals. The emotional beats are set up and knocked down like dominoes. Every plot twist, every dramatic moment, feels less like a natural progression and more like a checklist.
But the film never really feels earned
The filmmakers are obviously hoping for an Oscar nomination, which is why they stuff this movie with as much “important” drama and “timely” conflict as possible—hoping that Academy voters will eat it up with a spoon. Instead, it feels like it was carefully engineered for maximum emotional manipulation. It’s Oscar bait, sure, but with about as much subtlety and nuance as a sledgehammer.
There’s a bizarre union of contempt for a particular society and an impressionable mindset in the critics who grossly overrated this boring film
Lately, I hear a lot of rich people and people who are subservient to the rich or so-called classy people, who have no interesting hobbies, relying on these types of endeavors to distract themselves from the monotony, as if they seek meaning or excitement in the most superficial ways.