Directed by : Deepa Mehta
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714866/
My first Deepa Mehta film this was, and not a good experience at all. I haven't read the novel from which this film is inspired of. Maybe I would have atleast connected to the story more that way, but I doubt I would had liked the film even then.
The film is about children who were born at midnight of 14th august, i.e the moment when India got independence. And one of those children is Saleem Sinai who narrates the story from 20 odd years back with his grandfather marriage days.
There's lot of suffering the main characters go through in the movie, mainly Amina (Shahana Goswami) and her son, Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha). That is actually the only dramatic thing that keeps me interested in the movie till end, just to know if they would ever get happiness.
There are many wierd sequences, like Rajat Kapoor (father of Amina) coming to see Ghani's (Anupam Kher) daughter for a checkup where Ghani never allows him to look at her, instead a pardah thing is used to cover up everything except for the check up place. Rajat eventually becomes family doctor and then marries Ghani's daughter. There are many such scenes that are very unusual like the one where Rahul Bose (Zulfikar) walks out of Rajat's house telling his colleague, this is the lady I would get married to. Unintentional comical would be best way to describe all these scenes.
The place where I thought I am about to like the movie was when the lover of nurse tells 'Rich should be poor, and poor rich.. only then the balance will be right', and therefore the nurse replaces kids of Amina and a beggar. Saleem gets a life of rich boy, while Shiva (Siddharth) has to live a terrible life despite being the real son of Amina. The scenes that co-relate both in childhood, specially the one where beggar comes to sing at their house and get money first time, and then after few years when he comes second time around and gets no money.
Ronit Roy (Ahmed Sinai) probably plays loose version of Udaan here, though he starts out as a decent person but the way he tackles his son makes me wonder why show such side, and no good one specially because his character never appears bad until the failure sequence.
But where the movie loses any chance to involve me, is the special quality Saleem has to hear noises of all midnight children born on 1947, 14th aug night. That is however taken away by his father with operation, though it then results in new quality of smelling those children by Saleem. All this might have appealed while reading novel, but watching on screen looked very silly, unreal and not worth cinematic pleasure either. I just wanted these scenes to end, and the next portion of story to unfold.
All the events that happen, like the death of Saleem's parents, or the way he suffers with Shiva becoming a hero, happens way too suddenly. Also, what was writer or director trying to say that even if poor live life of rich, they will always be poor, and rich living life of poor will eventually triumph. Though, there is another twist to this theory at the right end of the film.
Also, the Indira Gandhi sub plot looked so out of context, and didn't like the way it ended either.
Amina's 1st love for Nadir (Zaib Shaikh) is taken away due to a jealous sister. Nadir returns back later to fulfill that love which Amina never got from Ahmed. The scenes where Saleem (Darsheel Safary) follows her mother, accusing her of meeting other person, or when he watches her feeling herself with Nadir around, looked very stupid.
Shabana Azmi, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey have small special apperances, nothing worth appreciating.
Seema Biswas was another actor whose character got my attention, as a nurse she did what she felt she should do to make her lover happy but realizing too late what wrong she did. She decides to become care-taker of Saleem to remove some of her sins, but she knows until she confesses nothing could be right. And when she do confess, it only worsens Saleem's life. The final scene between Saleem and her was very well directed.
Siddharth is also wasted in a role that offers very less from actor of his calibre. Rajat Kapoor gets few scenes to shine, Anupam Kher is decent. Shahana Goswami gets a good role, and she does pretty good. Satya Bhabha was okish to me, didn't quite like his acting.
Anita Majumdar as the jealous sister of Amina was good, though her character reminded me of 80's womans. Suresh Menon as Pakistan General, a serious role.. miscasting to the core. People in theatre laughed out whenever the frame had his face, once again unintentional comedy.
One good thing about the movie was Cinematography, there were many great visual scenes.. one of them being when Saleem cuts his cake and everyone lights firecrackers for its Independence day.
Overall, Midnights Children didn't appeal to me at all.
Verdict : POOR
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714866/
My first Deepa Mehta film this was, and not a good experience at all. I haven't read the novel from which this film is inspired of. Maybe I would have atleast connected to the story more that way, but I doubt I would had liked the film even then.
The film is about children who were born at midnight of 14th august, i.e the moment when India got independence. And one of those children is Saleem Sinai who narrates the story from 20 odd years back with his grandfather marriage days.
There's lot of suffering the main characters go through in the movie, mainly Amina (Shahana Goswami) and her son, Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha). That is actually the only dramatic thing that keeps me interested in the movie till end, just to know if they would ever get happiness.
There are many wierd sequences, like Rajat Kapoor (father of Amina) coming to see Ghani's (Anupam Kher) daughter for a checkup where Ghani never allows him to look at her, instead a pardah thing is used to cover up everything except for the check up place. Rajat eventually becomes family doctor and then marries Ghani's daughter. There are many such scenes that are very unusual like the one where Rahul Bose (Zulfikar) walks out of Rajat's house telling his colleague, this is the lady I would get married to. Unintentional comical would be best way to describe all these scenes.
The place where I thought I am about to like the movie was when the lover of nurse tells 'Rich should be poor, and poor rich.. only then the balance will be right', and therefore the nurse replaces kids of Amina and a beggar. Saleem gets a life of rich boy, while Shiva (Siddharth) has to live a terrible life despite being the real son of Amina. The scenes that co-relate both in childhood, specially the one where beggar comes to sing at their house and get money first time, and then after few years when he comes second time around and gets no money.
Ronit Roy (Ahmed Sinai) probably plays loose version of Udaan here, though he starts out as a decent person but the way he tackles his son makes me wonder why show such side, and no good one specially because his character never appears bad until the failure sequence.
But where the movie loses any chance to involve me, is the special quality Saleem has to hear noises of all midnight children born on 1947, 14th aug night. That is however taken away by his father with operation, though it then results in new quality of smelling those children by Saleem. All this might have appealed while reading novel, but watching on screen looked very silly, unreal and not worth cinematic pleasure either. I just wanted these scenes to end, and the next portion of story to unfold.
All the events that happen, like the death of Saleem's parents, or the way he suffers with Shiva becoming a hero, happens way too suddenly. Also, what was writer or director trying to say that even if poor live life of rich, they will always be poor, and rich living life of poor will eventually triumph. Though, there is another twist to this theory at the right end of the film.
Also, the Indira Gandhi sub plot looked so out of context, and didn't like the way it ended either.
Amina's 1st love for Nadir (Zaib Shaikh) is taken away due to a jealous sister. Nadir returns back later to fulfill that love which Amina never got from Ahmed. The scenes where Saleem (Darsheel Safary) follows her mother, accusing her of meeting other person, or when he watches her feeling herself with Nadir around, looked very stupid.
Shabana Azmi, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey have small special apperances, nothing worth appreciating.
Seema Biswas was another actor whose character got my attention, as a nurse she did what she felt she should do to make her lover happy but realizing too late what wrong she did. She decides to become care-taker of Saleem to remove some of her sins, but she knows until she confesses nothing could be right. And when she do confess, it only worsens Saleem's life. The final scene between Saleem and her was very well directed.
Siddharth is also wasted in a role that offers very less from actor of his calibre. Rajat Kapoor gets few scenes to shine, Anupam Kher is decent. Shahana Goswami gets a good role, and she does pretty good. Satya Bhabha was okish to me, didn't quite like his acting.
Anita Majumdar as the jealous sister of Amina was good, though her character reminded me of 80's womans. Suresh Menon as Pakistan General, a serious role.. miscasting to the core. People in theatre laughed out whenever the frame had his face, once again unintentional comedy.
One good thing about the movie was Cinematography, there were many great visual scenes.. one of them being when Saleem cuts his cake and everyone lights firecrackers for its Independence day.
Overall, Midnights Children didn't appeal to me at all.
Verdict : POOR
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