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Film review: The Iron Lady

My review in this week's issue of Tehelka

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Phyllida Lloyd’s biopic of a powerful politician is a chronicle of ageing, loneliness, and sheer sadness, says Priyanka Gill

The Iron Lady is the herald of the many films, books and writings that will chronicle the life of Lady Thatcher, arguably the most famous British prime minister after Winston Churchill. Thatcher was an extremely polarising figure evoking strong opinions ranging from blind devotion to extreme hatred. As the only female prime minister in British history, she remained in power for 11 years.

However, this is not what the controversial film is about. Even one-time Thatcher rivals such as Michael Heseltine found the release of a film focusing on Lady Thatcher’s dementia whilst she is still alive ‘distasteful’. The Thatcher family has rejected the film. They have publicly refused to see it. David Cameron also came out against the film saying, “I wish they could have made another day.” Lady Thatcher’s detractors have taken the issue with its lack of criticism.

Thatcher’s tale is told through a series of flashbacks, through the disjointed memories of the octogenarian lady suffering from dementia-induced delusions. The film is a love story, an intimate look into her relationship with her husband Denis (played by Jim Broadbent). In the film’s timeline, he passed away several years ago, but she has touching conversations with him about the minutiae of her daily life and her past. Towards the end of the film we see her valiantly trying to banish his ghost from her mind in a tear-jerking bid to remain sane.

It’s a chronicle of ageing, depicting the loneliness, the loss of control and sheer sadness that is the unfortunate by-product of an inevitable process.

However, in doing so, the film reduces the strong leader to a senile woman. Her achievements are merely incidental to the storyline and her ruthlessness is a cautionary tale.

The Iron lady is a personal depiction of the guilt and regrets confronting a powerful leader in her fading years. The rise to power, her transformation into a force to reckon with and the many political storms she faced are just hinted at and tantalisingly dangled before the viewer. There is no perspective or historical context offered.

Meryl Streep, of course, remains the saving grace of the film. She delivers a stunning, maybe even an Oscar-winning performance. Not only is she a potent mimic of Thatcher’s mannerisms, but also manages to delve into the soul of the character created by director Phyllida Lloyd. With brilliant make-up and prosthetic enhancement (the process took two hours apparently), Streep portrays Thatcher to the hilt. Moving effortlessly and convincingly between the young and old periods, it is a master class in both acting and making the best of a rather loose script.

One almost wishes they had made the film like they cut its trailer—with a focus on the woman, her rise to power and her achievements. The dementia she became afflicted with in her latter years is an unfortunate ailment, not the key to decoding the woman behind the legend.

Llyod’s film is worth a watch, if only to inspire further study into the force of nature that Maggie Thatcher once was.

Priyanka Gill is a freelance journalist and an avid art collector. 
She blogs at www.estylista.com 

Film Review: Casino Royale

Casino Royale 

Director: Martin Campbell

Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen, Giancarlo Giannini

BOND: SHAKEN, STIRRED AND SERVED UP HOT

As a diehard Pierce Brosnan fan, I was more than ready to slam both Casino Royale and Daniel Craig as the newest James Bond. After all, who could match the suave and supremely cool Brosnan as the ultimate man about town?

But that was before I saw the film.

Vesper Lynd is no regular Bond girl; in fact, Craig is the film’s only character to emerge from the ocean in a wet bathing suit

Casino Royale is a modern upgrade for a franchise that was in danger of becoming a chauvinist anachronism and the casting of Daniel Craig is nothing less than inspired. Telling the story of Bond’s first mission as a 007 agent, the film treats the audience to the evolution of Bond’s character. Craig starts off as a rough agent who gradually acquires the polish and urbane roguishness that epitomise the martini-swilling spy. After committing the requisite double-murders, the first with his bare hands, Bond earns his official 007 rating. Now he’s all set to take on the super-villain: Le Chiffre (played to perfection by Mads Mikkelsen), private banker to international terrorists.

Le Chiffre invests his clients’ money rather unwisely on the stock exchange, and thanks to Bond ends up losing a large chunk of it. In a bid to save his skin, Le Chiffre sets up a high-stakes poker play-off. The British Treasury funds Bond’s buy-in into the game, a cool $10 million. Oversee-ing the treasury money is Vesper Lynd (played by the delectable Eva Green). She is no regular Bond girl, despite the standard gorgeousness one expects from the series’ female interests. In fact, Craig is the film’s only character to emerge out of the ocean in a wet bathing suit, a la Ursula Andress. Lynd is intelligent and not only does she keeps her clothes on (for most of the film), but it is to her that Bond uncharacteristically professes his love. She is forced, finally, into betraying him, which puts him well on the way to becoming the womaniser and serial heartbreaker we know him as.

It is because of its attempts to question Bond stereotypes (during the poker game, a waiter asks if Bond wants his martini shaken or stirred; he snaps, “Do I look like I give a damn?”), that Casino Royale has all the makings of a rarity: a smart, funny potboiler. The fights are realistic, if slightly too long. Craig is physical perfection, looking more than capable of executing the convoluted action sequences required of his character. He is credible because we can picture him essaying the bad guy as well. The gadgets are there but are pared to the minimum and are definitely more believable than the memorable invisible car Brosnan drove around.

Ultimately, Bond wins the game, saves the world, gets his heart broken and loses the love of his life. It is the last bit that makes Casino Royale one of the best Hollywood films in recent memory.

December 16th 2006

Film review: One Dollar Curry

An Indian in Paris

Director: Vijay Singh

Starring: Vikram Chatwal, Smriti Mishra, Garbiella Wright

 
INDIAN CINEMA has a big following in France though relatively few Indians live in France. Director Vijay Singh's film One Dollar Curry caters to this crowd. Paris is a new setting, unlike cities like London or New York, which have been in the background fpr a whole bunch of films. Singh knows Paris well. He has been living there for over 20 years, working as a journalist and a writer-director. His first feature film Jaya Ganga starring Smriti Mishra received rave reviews. Despite its limited release, the film ran for 49 weeks in Parisian cinemas before going on to screen in 80 cinemas around the UK.

It's no surprise that One Dollar Curry opened to a full house in the Cannes market section. The film tells the story of Nishan, (Vikram Chatwal), a young Sikh who comes to Paris as a political refugee with nothing except bottlews of 'Kamasutra Nandi Bull Oil'. In order to sustain himself he resorts to selling cheap Indian food on the streets of Paris and ultimately reincarnates himself as the Maharaja of Indian cuisine by creating fake credentials for himself. His partner in crime is Nathalie (Gabriella Wright), a budding TV journalist working on a documentary on immigration. Her increasing attraction to him provides a twist in the tale. Nishan's Indian fiancée, Yamini (Smriti Mishra), pays him a surprise visit. Rather conveniently, Francois, the TV producer that Nathalie and Nishan are looking to impress, fall for Yamini's dusky looks and kathak dancer's grace. All the kinks are ironed out to lead the way to the happily ever after end.

It is not an original tale; we have seen variations of the same in films like Guru. But the charm lies in the director's ability to make the circumstantial plot seem quite plausible. Singh claims to deal with dark issues such as racial discrimination and the traumas associated with immigration with absurd comedy, as a result, it does ask for suspension of disbelief from the viewer. But in return, one understands the complications that immigrants face. We empathise, but we also realise that happy, contrived endings are possible in movies, not in real life. Ultimately, it is a mad caper by an imaginative Sikh, who makes it in a foreign land helped by the occasional stroke of good fortune – finding a Hindi-speaking French Judge and landing a gorgeous French girlfriend.

Shot largely in English, with a smattering of French, Hindi and Punjabi, the film caters to a foreign audience. India is seen through the eyes of an outsider and this exotic representation might not go down well so well with the Indian viewer. One Dollar Curry has an Indian-based storyline with crossover appeal. More importantly, Singh shows us a face of Paris that has not been seen before. There is just one shot of the Eiffel Tower, that too in the background (which cost 23,000 euros in royalty). Instead we see the back streets that immigrants haunt. While it may not have the magic of Monsoon Wedding, One Dollar Curry represents a new branch of Indian cinema that is not just US or UK-centric but Euro-centric.

Film review: Phir Milenge

Bollywood Aids

Director: Revathy

Starring: Salman Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan

THIS COMMERCIAL FILM WITH AN UNCONVENTIONAL STORYLINE COULD START A WELCOME TREND

These are desperate times for Bollywood. Skin flicks seem to be ruling the roost with high voltage glamour and minimum clothing in item numbers being conceived as the major pull factor.

Filmmakers have a rather low estimation of the average viewer's intellect and sensitive subjects are often considered the 'art-film' domain. But actress turned director Revathy's Phir Milenge is a commercial attempt at dealing with an unconventional storyline.

It tells the story of Tamanna, an ad-exec who gets the boot for being HIV positive. Shilpa Shetty gives a sterling performance. Her cause is championed by Abhishek Bachchan and it could very well be his best performance so far.

Phir Milenge is important because it could be the herald of a welcome trend in Indian cinema: the emergence of mainstream storylines not dependant on the hero-herione romance, which forms the basis of most films. The script might be shoddy and the crying bouts excessively long, but its success could inspire other filmmakers into challenging the audience's intellectual maturity rather than simply appealing to their more basic instincts.

Film review: Mona Lisa Smile

A Very Ordinary Smile 

Director: Mike Newell

Starring: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst

A WEAK PLOT, SLAP-DASH SCRIPT AND A WASTED STAR CAST, SAYS PRIYANKA GILL

There are some fantastic ways to spend two hours. Watching Mona Lisa Smile is not one of them. Films about teachers and students are generally inspiring but this new addition to the well-established genre leaves the viewer frustrated with the exceedingly weak plot and slap-dash script. This female take on Dead Poets Society is a miserable failure.

The star-studded cast of Mona Lisa Smile is led by Julia Roberts who plays a bohemian 1950's college professor Katherine Wilson. We know she's bohemian because we are told as much. There are certain roles that Roberts plays well – like the good prostitute or the gorgeous crusader – but as a professor, her performance falls flat. Katherine comes to the conservative all-girls' Wellesley College to teach art criticism and tries to enthuse the students with her fiery brand of feminism. She wants her students to question the institution of marriage but her own constant rejection of love is not explored.

The students are represented by a quartet of friends, who initially challenge Katherine, but soon enough, accept her. Only Betty Warren (Kirsten Dunst) remains staunchly against Katherine and her avant-garde methods of teaching. Warren uses the editorials of the student newspaper to wage war against everything that threatens the function of a Wellesley education as a training ground and precursor to sensible housewifery. Be it the contraception that the lesbian school nurse played by Juliet Stevenson distributes, for which she is sacked or Katherine's efforts to motivate Warren's best friend, the smart Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles) to take up law at Yale along with marriage. Warren is ultimately 'defeated' as her dream marriage ends in divorce and she is convinced that Katherine's arguments are right and becomes president of Katherine's fan club.

Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) gives a stellar performance as the free-spirited sexual adventuress who sleeps with her Italian Professor Dunbar (Dominic West). Levy serves as a foil to Warren's prissy uptightness and represents her generation's struggle to balance sexual freedom with the emotional demands of her heart.

Newcomer Ginnifer Goodwin makes an impressive debut as Connie. She plays the nice girl who is not as attractive as the others or as smart. She falls for a bespectacled young mans and ultimately, she is the only who is left happily in love.

West's interpretation of the campus Casanova, Professor Dunbar, is one-dimensional; his character has neither the wit nor the charm to pull it off. His seduction of Katherine is contrived and hard to swallow. The final showdown between Katherine and Dunbar is a convenient ending to the film, which never really goes anywhere. Just before the credits, we see Katherine's character leaving Wellesley, smugly happy with the adulation of the students who once challenged her.

Mona Lisa Smile disappoints, simply because there is an abundance of acting talent that goes to waste because the plot line is wafer thin. The script is not in the least bit innovative or insightful and all lthat remains is a clichéd portrayal of feminism that fails to break new ground. The movie has no purpose besides serving up the hackneyed follow-your-dreams (as long as it is not marriage) message.