Margarita with a Straw - A good watch, albeit the unusual subject and some flaws

“So what if your kid is Autistic. I heard they are very intelligent and he will become ‘alright’.”

“So what if you do not have kids? I know a great doctor, go to him. You can adopt also right?”

Our society is slowly becoming sensitive to people who are going through struggles in life or if they themselves or someone they love, have special needs. However often we try to be extra sympathetic without knowing the facts and may not understand that the way we choose to provide our support may actually hurt them.

They may not need that extra bit of sympathy or advice. We need to realize that more often than not, people do not want sympathy, which is sometimes synthetic in the first place. All they need is an effort to sincerely understand their situation and to be genuinely treated as equals.

“Margarita with a Straw” is an excellent attempt to show the life, the struggles and the coming of age of a girl with cerebral palsy and hits most of the right cords regarding the mental condition of such people, the overall attitude of their family and the society towards them.

Kalki as the protagonist Laila is par excellence. Due to her condition she has severe problems with her motor skills and speech, but she has enough talent otherwise and is passionate about music. She writes the lyrics for her college band and her emotions and desires are just like any other college going kid.

To get into such a character, the expressions, the mannerisms, the speech, the helplessness sometimes followed by the courage and the resilience, everything is perfect. A lot of effort goes into playing a character like that, so full marks for the same.

Revathy as the supportive mother is as seasoned an actress as ever. Her steel like supportive attitude towards her family, in spite of being a cancer patient, especially towards her daughter with special needs, even when she wants to go abroad to pursue higher education, her sadness within at times, has been excellently executed. Sayani Gupta as a blind girl, Laila’s friend and roommate Khanum also delivers a very good performance, as an important character in the plot.

Director Shonali Bose gets most things right with her story telling and she deserves kudos for making a movie on this subject. Realities like the society tries to understand such conditions, friends are helpful most of the times, people show sympathy, but then we are still not there yet completely have been portrayed very well. The middle finger to the senior lady at the music competition is an excellent scene for example.

The fact that the person with special needs would also have grey shades like any of us, would bargain for things, can be selfish and may subconsciously use people have been shown honestly. The idea that we all want to fit in and eventually realize that real happiness and contentment is found within our own selves has been driven through in a nice and subtle way.

Movie goers must encourage such subjects because they help people understand such conditions.

However the sensitive subject should not make one reluctant of having a critical view of all the aspects of the film. When I watch such movies I consider Dustin Hoffman’s “Rainman” and the Sanjeev Kumar, Jaya Bhaduri starrer “Koshish” as benchmarks.

Off late while most Hindi movies have been way off the mark in portraying characters with special needs, Taare Zameer Par is one bright exception. Priyanka Chopra’s depiction as an Autistic person in Barfi is also a good example.

Though the character building of the protagonist is top notch, the film does fail at some levels. It successfully portrays that the explorations and understanding of the self, the yearnings and desires of a person with a special condition is the same as other human beings. Understanding one’s sexuality is also a part of it. However it is just one part.

In the movie, the sexual aspect is too emphasized and by the end it becomes a bit of overkill. Other aspects like aspirations, the relationship with others and the struggles thereof, the other myriad facets of the journey called life are covered, but not in as much depth as they should have been.

Acceptance and sensitivity towards people with special needs is something we need to develop a lot more as a nation of people. Acceptance of gay relationships is another such issue. While I support both issues, mixing them in one movie seemed to shift the actual focus.

The other way to look at it might be that that the movie rightly does not educate or preach. It just shows the story of girl with cerebral palsy, who also happens to be bisexual.

It is a bit slow and on an unusual subject and hence may not do well at the box office. However it is a good watch, primarily due to the acting prowess of the leading ladies. The thin storyline and less than excellent screenplay prevent it from being the masterpiece it could have been.

Please do watch it for Kalki’s acting though, 3 stars out of 5 from me. 

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy: A different Satyanveshi, but must watch!!

One thing is certain, slowly but surely, Indian cinema is changing for the better.

We may not be right up there with the best as yet and we still produce lots of garbage masquerading as cinema, but when you watch a Hindi movie with no cringe worthy moments and you unabashedly compare it with good international movies in the same genre, things definitely are moving in the right direction.

This change is being led by directors like Dibakar Banerjee. Already having feathers like “Kholsa ka Ghosla” in his cap, Banerjee is a clear winner again in “Detective Byomkesh Bakshy” and delivers a stylish crime drama with aplomb.

The nostalgic or the purist, who were born and brought up with the cool and suave Rajat Kapoor in the Doordarshan series with the same name, or those that have a fixed idea of “Satyanveshi” in their minds through readings and depictions in other movies, may take time to accept Sushant Singh Rajput as the famous detective.

This depiction Byomkesh is arrogant initially, clearly has his human shortcomings and Rajput as an actor does not try hard to fit into any mould. This has its pros and cons.

While it is always advisable for an actor not to copy anyone and become one’s own character, one may ask how a Bengali babumoshai of Kolkata in the 1940s can have such impeccable Hindi with no mother tongue influence whatsoever and no real mannerisms of a young Bengali lad, ironically while every other character looked and behaved more Bengali. Others may feel would it have been better to cast someone like Rajkumar Rao as the protagonist.

Having said this and the above points apart, Rajput does make the most of it, honestly works hard, grows into the role and becomes very good by the climax.

Ajit contacts Byomkesh to find his father, a chemical scientist, who has gone missing. Byomkesh starts staying in the boarding house where Ajit’s father used to stay just before he went missing and starts unravelling the mystery along with Anukul Guha, the lodge owner.

The first story of Sharadindu Banerjee in the actual Byomkesh series starts in a hostel as well, in the backdrop of a couple of murders, but the similarity ends there. Unlike the actual “humble” Byomkesh stories that constitute theft, impersonation or a couple of murders at the most, involving domestic or local issues, the plot for this movie is like a huge canvass.

Highly complex, but makes sense as we are slowly able to join the dots. The overall plot includes the Second World War, the Kolkata bombings by Japan, powerful politicians and the opium mafia of China, alongside dead bodies and corpses found at every plot point.

The supporting cast is simply excellent. The character of Ajit is not what Sharadindu Banerjee wrote, but has been very well played by the ‘seasoned’ Anand Tiwari. Neeraj Kabi as the lodge owner is a revelation, excellent acting and we must see more of him in the future. Swastika Mukherjee who was the leading lady in the highly acclaimed and awarded Bengali movie “Jatishwar”, plays the role of a dangerous seductress to perfection. Meiyang Chang, Divya Menon as Satyavati, the other housemates and characters are competent.

If “Kahaani” showed contemporary Kolkata with finesse, Banerjee has been able to depict pre Independence Kolkata with mastery. The trams, the clutter, the beauty, the Howrah bridge, the British, the Japanese, the politicians of those times, all woven together in a gripping screenplay.

The cinematography is brilliant, the background music and songs add to the intense situations.

One cannot help but compare with movies like “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”. Some of the scenes seem to be inspired by this Sherlock flick, sometimes during the build-up and during the climax. No one can accuse Banerjee of plagiarism though; this can be termed as positive influence because nothing has been lifted directly, except the presentation in some sequences.

Overall Banerjee scores because while Holmes was transformed into a James Bond in the said Hollywood movie braving cannons and missiles, Bakshy is still largely a "drawing room detective" in this one, solving complex situations and motives in his mind and waiting for that one elusive missing clue and then for his Eureka moment. As the director, Banerjee did the right thing to spice up and tweak the character to keep up with current audiences, while keeping the soul of the character intact.

The climax is a notch lower than the build-up and the final scenes that were put in only as a platform for the second part are a bit hammy.

I would wait for part 2 though, 4 stars for part one. 3.5 for the movie and 0.5 because we are making such movies!