THE LUNCHBOX: "LONELINESS SIMULTANEOUSLY INCREASED AND DECREASED"

DIRECTED BY: RITESH BATRA 

STARRING: IRRFAN KHAN, NIMRAT KAUR, NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI, NAKUL VAID, YASHWI PUNEET NAGAR with BHARATI ACHREKAR, DENZIL SMITH and LILETE DUBEY 

‘The Lunchbox’ was the second of my ‘coming to terms with things’ trilogy for today. The first one was the Josh Radnor film ‘Liberal Arts’ which I watched for the second time. And I made my way back from the cinema hall thinking I might have to revisit Fatih Akin’s ‘The Edge of Heaven’ later which would be the third film in that sequence. I might go ahead and watch it. I might not. I thought I’d write what I thought about ‘The Lunchbox’ down first. You can read what I thought about ‘Liberal Arts’ here, as written the first time I watched it. Not much has changed of what I felt about it. A little more clarity, a little more fondness. The academic observations have remained more or less the same. 

Surprisingly, the film I was most reminded of when I watched ‘The Lunchbox’ is neither of the films I have mentioned above. Nor was it ‘Manhattan’, Woody Allen’s biggest shot at optimism if he ever showed a little bit. The film I was most reminded of was this Marathi film called ‘Masala’ which was my ‘pick of the festival’ at OSIAN last year. ‘Masala’ captured a suburban couple’s pursuit of ‘the better life’, with a defining climactic moment where both of them separately find contentment in the realization that they have all they can ask for: each other. ‘The Lunchbox’ ends in mutual hopefulness (or a lack thereof) in the fact that the one they are looking for is looking for them as well. They might or might not find each other. Yet they find contentment in the fact that the wheels are in motion. 

But were the wheels ever idle? In answering this question, we find ourselves having to play by the presuppositions that either/all of these films bring to the table. Or rather, the overarching presupposition that the only thing palatable about life is flux. Not motion, but flux. This is best exemplified in Prof. Hoberg’s (Richard Jenkins) comment in ‘Liberal Arts’ when he says “Any place you don’t leave is a prison.” We are having to accord ourselves to this one presupposition that to be stuck in the same routine all these characters find themselves in is the same as being ‘trapped’. It is not hard to align oneself with that notion. On the one hand, it is pretty characteristic of my scheme of things, where I stand in life and my approach to life and living in general. On the other hand, there is also the “dirty little secret” (again, in Prof. Hoberg’s words) that no one in the world actually feels like an adult. You either come to terms with the fact that your life is and will continue to be unremarkable, or you refuse to do so. 

There is nothing wrong with Saajan Fernandez’ (Irrfan Khan, with less of his swagger) life. He is a widower claiming early retirement from his position as a clerk in the claims department of an insurance firm. He has no one for company. Does that make him lonely? I don’t think so. If anything, Saajan has reconciled with the fact that life can get no better. He is like Bruce Wayne in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, having reached a point where life can be no different. He has reached his cruise altitude. All that is left is to go full-on autopilot: which is precisely what he does. 

This is one step beyond loneliness. To be lonely is to grieve that one isn’t getting one’s due in all of life’s joys and riches. Saajan has reconciled with the fact that life can be nothing but lonely. If loneliness is a limbo, his state of mind is one where he has pulled the plug already. His shrugging off of the pest in Shaikh (Nawazzudin Siddiqui, delightful) is not the reaction of the irritable working husband having to deal with stress, anxiety, school admissions, constipation and what not. He is more like Ebenezer Scrooge who’d say no to Christmas because it doesn’t let the dead decompose. 

One day, Saajan receives a lunchbox door-delivered by the famed dabbahwalahs of Mumbai. The box looks no different from the one he receives every day. But the food is not the same. It is not the aloo-gobi that so disgusts him. It is nothing remarkable either. The one distinguishing detail about this food is that it shows care – care that a loving wife shows her husband, which he now has intercepted. Care that wants nothing but acknowledgement for it to soldier on; for her to soldier on. Her name is Ila. He comes to know of it through a note she slips into the folds of a chapatti as she lets him know that the food she cooks for her husband is getting delivered to him by mistake. Saajan writes back. The conversation begins.
 

Ila (Nimrat Kaur, absolutely beautiful) has reconciled to a lifeless marriage. Remember the “old lady” Celine talks about in ‘Before Sunrise’ and how their lives are but her dream with a theme of regret? Well, Ila gets to speak to that old lady, actually. She calls her “Aunty,” a voice from above which, from giving cooking suggestions to life lessons, pretty much takes her through her whole interaction with Saajan. She even functions as a jukebox when she plays ‘Mera Dil Bhi Kitna Pagal Hai’ from the film ‘Saajan’ at request. She prods Ila to take the adventure as it beckons. Ila takes it up. This choice of hers is in sync with something Saajan says in the course of their correspondence. To paraphrase, he says one’s actions are rendered meaningless in the absence of someone to share it with. This is a revelation. In the life of someone who is only perhaps a little more affable than Gru in ‘Despicable Me’, this is a twist in the tale. 

It is in the intense feeling of loneliness that both these people begin their search for joy. Let me take another ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ example to clarify. A fellow prisoner in the cave tells Bruce Wayne that it is in acknowledgement of the fear of death that one finds purpose in living. Likewise, it is by acknowledging their loneliness that Saajan and Ila seek their mutual company. Life blossoms. Saajan looks “10 years younger” as Shaikh puts it. Even Shaikh, annoying as he is with his advances, seems lovable. Saajan and Ila wake up from their coma to see that things have changed. And they scramble and scrounge to fix it, finding contentment in their efforts; in the fact that they are, for once, “trying.” 

Life becomes precious with the knowledge that one can lose it. All distinctions between “want” and “need” are made at the onset of loss. Saajan is set to retire. Ila looks to move to Bhutan. Between them, they have a month. They could miss each other. They could meet. In the course of a month, they become important enough to each other that they would try, perhaps for as long as they live – much like how the night in ‘Before Sunrise’ was adequate for Jesse and Celine to want to meet again. ‘The Lunchbox’ thus resolves into Ila necessitating Saajan and vice-versa, despite constraints. Above the impossibility of it, there is also a very petty, subjective and yet crucial barrier. Saajan might not care for the fact that Ila is married, but is perturbed by the fact that he is much older than her. He sees in her a burning flame while he fancies himself to be a burnout, only to prove himself wrong as he shrugs it off and makes a sprint for it in the style of Woody Allen in ‘Manhattan’ as opposed to going the Josh Radnor way. 

The only problem I had with ‘The Lunchbox’ was the title. I’d have liked something on the lines of ‘The Edge of Heaven.’ The Guy de Maupassant sort of banal title, I felt, took away from the poetry. There were also a couple of instances when I felt ‘The Lunchbox’ took the ‘Ship of Theseus’ route of over-explaining. Thankfully, they were very few. For the most part, ‘The Lunchbox’ is subtle filmmaking, with incredibly human performances spearheaded by the stunning Nimrat Kaur. Amidst films that manipulate people’s vulnerability, ‘The Lunchbox’ is a gift. It is not a one-time feast that satiates the voracious film-viewer who thirsts to consume. It is magic in an everyday event. In Glen Hansard’s words, it is a gift that “falls right in your hands.” Extra delightful, when you least expect it.

PARADISE VALLEY: ON THE WAY HOME

MUSIC BY JOHN MAYER 

NOTE: The album releases on the 20th of August, 2013. Click here to listen to a free iTunes stream, which is where I caught the whole album as well - thrice. 

In a realm far, far away, I had once argued for artistic merit against personal significance. The case in point was a Lars Von Trier film called ‘Melancholia’. Now, there is no question that ‘Melancholia’ has as much artistic merit as any other Lars Von Trier film might have had. It was pitch-perfect in what it promised to be. It was insufferable in the fact that it was a boring, depressing experience in the name of artistry. But then ‘Melancholia’ must have been incredibly significant to its cast and crew. Kirsten Dunst, its lead, and Von Trier had both gotten out of chronic depression at the onset of the film. While in its making and reception both of them would have found redemption, one cannot say the same of the viewer who finds no part to play in the creative process. 

Likewise, it is becoming an increasingly strange experience to listen to a John Mayer record. In all his experiments with sounds and techniques, the autobiographical tone still remains. And we watch as it becomes more pronounced with each new record. But if there is one thing that could be said about John it is that he has always managed to strike a balance between the man he is and the music he makes. With ‘Paradise Valley’, however, I see the man outdo his music, which says a lot about the direction in which he is headed; where his music is personal and asks for some affiliation in the listener for it to be palatable. 

Why I say this is also driven by a need to establish that I come from that kind of affiliation where John Mayer is concerned. It is a territory where all criticism becomes problematic. It is a problem of proximity, of familiarity, of being able to second-guess what could have gone behind having written that song or that line in that song that might sound out of place, but you have a vague idea on why it might have been put there. Much of John Mayer’s music seems to develop from such privileged information that almost seems to ask the listener to be informed of his social and personal life. 

To elucidate a little, John Mayer is a singer-songwriter who has had his evolutionary phases in musicianship. There was the boy with the guitar who made the household album ‘Room for Squares’. There was the thirsting young man who talked ‘Heavier Things’ soon after. He then ‘Try!’ed his hand at the blues, peaking with ‘Continuum’ where he seemed to hit the sweet spot no matter what he played. It would not be an overstatement to say that he had the same kind of luck with women outside of his music. Fame brought some notoriety along with it. Between petty controversies he had pretty much brewed for himself, John released the underwhelming ‘Battle Studies’. 

It is important to note that while he does ‘spread it thin’ once in a while where his public image is concerned, there has been no compromise on his music. If it was fascination that took him to the blues in the first place, an ailing heart had him find it again as he strung together what one could call his most important album, three years after the ‘Battle Studies’ debacle (which still went platinum). ‘Born and Raised’, released in 2012, had a changed man. The outspoken troublemaker had been silenced, both figuratively and literally, with only his music to speak with. To add to a bad name earned was a recurring throat condition that would ensure he would stay out of action for two whole years. 

‘Born and Raised’ was no ‘Continuum’, but it is perhaps that very detail that is comforting. The John of now, thirty five years and a few screw-ups past, is a much more nuanced performer than the John of then, a twenty nine year old guitar sensation. In solitude, he discovered simplicity. He took his music, stripped it bare; he focused on the basics. Say what you need to say. Say nothing more. Say nothing less. 

‘Paradise Valley’ comes a year after ‘Born and Raised’ and is as close to it, musically. No two John Mayer records have resembled each other as much ‘Paradise Valley’ and ‘Born and Raised’ seem to. Does this signify a saturation on his evolutionary chart? It is safe to say one cannot tell, for we are in the business of making observations; not making claims. A more important question would be to ask what this means to the average listener: when a musician realizes he’s got no point to prove and turns the amp down a notch. Compositions have become simpler, yet more nuanced. His words aren’t too hard to fathom. The boy once spoke in code now has the straightest things to say. What other paradigm can a line like “you love who you love, who you love” come from? The duet with Katy Perry serves to speak for both parties on the sensationalized relationship the two of them share. She was the woman “he didn’t see coming.” He’s the ‘boy’ with “a heart that’s hard to hold.” 

On the one hand, this makes for sweet confession. ‘Who you love’, in fact, closes with Katy Perry ad-libbing “oh, you’re the one I love”, after which she bursts into a giggle, which, interestingly, has been retained on the record. On the other hand, for John Mayer the semi-pop musician, this means a larger audience. It’s like you could almost hear him say “if you thought ‘Half of my Heart was a stretch, wait till you get a load of this!” Thus, we find ourselves in the strange territory between the man and his music. 

There are many such songs in ‘Paradise Valley’ which appear to be of great personal significance, but have little to differentiate, say, from an existing song of his own, let alone contribute to musical innovation. John Mayer seems to have left it to the Frank Oceans of the world to mess around. He, on his part, has carved a niche for himself and is quite comfortable there. Music is no more a statement but a way of being, where the world, he finds, is a safe place to be. There is hope. He has found it. There is no reason to feel insecure. 

‘Paradise Valley’ is the plot summary of a wanderer having found his way back home. If ‘Born and Raised’ began his journey of self-discovery, ‘Paradise Valley’ closes it. It is, however, an open-ended sort of closure that it achieves, which we have reason to believe is very much the intention. Even at his vengeful best, the most John Mayer can do is sound sorry. His ‘Paper Doll’ addresses someone who is “like twenty two girls in one,” none of whom knows what she’s running from, even as he writes for himself “Sometimes I don’t know which way to go/And I’ve tried to run before, but I’m not running anymore.” What he detests is a part of himself that he claims he’s made his peace with. And that is as much as he wishes for the listener as well; as much as he wishes for this elusive ‘Paper Doll’ of his. 

Three songs compete for my pick of the album on an album where all songs seem to have found their rightful place. ‘Wildfire’ is most exciting of them all, probably the first time since ‘No Such Thing’ that John has gone for a clap-your-hands sort of anthem. Except he isn’t calling high-school students to mutiny, but for his woman to come shake a leg; a fair bait to offer yours. We then have his cover of the J.J. Cale song ‘Call me the Breeze’ – of which he manages as tight a cover as ‘Crossroads’ on ‘Battle Studies’. The third song is the prophetic ‘You’re No one till Someone lets you down’, a song that is ‘absolutely beautiful’ – a term David Gray used to describe ‘To Ramona’; a fitting term in this context as well, what with the kind of counsel John has to offer. 

There is a line in ‘I Will be Found (Lost at Sea)’ where John compares himself to a ‘feather in a hurricane’. I was instantly reminded of Jack Dawson in ‘Titanic’ as he 'predicts' Dylan when he says “I’m just a tumbleweed, blowin’ in the wind.” The differences are clear. The winds are supposedly harder, the feather – lighter. But there is no denying that they are saying the same thing: like there is no denying that ‘Paradise Valley’ is an epitome of the ease with which John Mayer expresses himself – musically, lyrically; vocally.

SHIP OF THESEUS: NEEDS AN ANCHOR-TRANSPLANT

 

DIRECTED BY ANAND GANDHI 

STARRING: SOHUM SHAH, NEERAJ KABI, AIDA ELKASHEF, AMBA SANYAL, FARAZ KHAN, VINAY SHUKLA, SAMEER KHURANA, SUNIP SEN, VIPUL BINJOLA, MANOJ SHAH, RAMNIK PAREKH and YASHWANT WASNIK 

I do not know what Anand Gandhi won many a heart with. But I can tell you about what captured mine in his ‘Ship of Theseus’, a two and a half hour thesis that has a last act that, in my opinion, wins it for the writer-director. For this, I will have to write in detail about what the last act had to offer, or, for that matter, the entire film perhaps, which means you will have to excuse me for revealing more than I ought to. But then I have a shrewd idea that you might have watched the film already and, for that reason, it might be safe after all for me to ‘spoil’ it for you. 

Navin (Sohum Shah) watches the stock-market when he is not watching over his grandmother. The story begins with him pondering over stocks with a surgical mask on his face and a needle at the back of his hand as his doctor tells him his cretanin levels are back to normal. He has just had his kidney replaced. Navin speaks everyman Hindi, has a goofball friend and a grandmother who believes that we exist to do some good to society. Struck by all the activism that seems to be happening around him – which has been there in his lineage – Navin neither knows how to digest it all, nor how he could add to the legacy. 

With Navin, we are introduced to a cultural, as well as a moral dilemma. There is a conversation that he has with his grandmother on the language he speaks and the music he listens to/appreciates before she fractures her leg. There is the other fiercer one he has as she is bed-ridden, where he tries to defend his need to be compassionate. While he defines his compassion in a detail as small as his inclination to take care of her, his grandmother goes as far as to ask him what he has sought to give back to society. To her, his – or anyone’s – existence is defined by how much he makes himself valuable to society. This commitment looks beyond the paradigm of right and wrong, she says. 

This is where the beauty in the very definition of Navin comes in. In the scene where he is introduced, he changes from an overall into a light pink shirt with a vest under it, takes off his surgical mask to show some neatly-trimmed facial hair, a pair of very subtle and formal-looking glasses whose case he carries around in his shirt pocket. Without doubt, you notice that it is bifocals that he wears – which, for those who have seen their dads age in front of them, is household stuff. So is the spectacle case. It is a light shade of gold, perhaps with a hint of brown in it, with a clip to hold it to a shirt pocket. Ahead of the Bajaj Chetak or the Hyundai Santro later on, it is best representative of the aging Indian middle-class. 

What he is also accused of is the apathy that is characteristic of the same. Navin is not the man on the wrong side of the struggle. He is the one who wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. His struggle even with himself has the awkwardness of a person who, to put it simply, wishes he wasn’t there having to handle it. His walk is mechanical, his shoulders droop. Even if not emphasized, one could be sure he drags his feet. Had Matthew Broderick played his role, he would have had midlife crisis written all over his face, but Anand Gandhi does well in not insinuating it as much. Navin wakes up in the middle of the night at the hospital to the wails of a woman. Her husband, a construction worker by the name of Shankar (Yashwant Wasnik), has had his appendicitis operation done by a quack, who had also taken a kidney alongside the rudimentary organ. If a man can live without his appendix, he could do so without a kidney as well, right? Navin sends his friend to find out a little more. Several flights of stairs later, he returns with details on Shankar’s blood group and the fact that he has had his kidney removed on the 16th of that month. Navin had had his transplant done on the 17th. 

There begins the quest for redemption. Navin is the kind of guy who would not want to find himself in the wrong. He fears the kidney he had received might be the one that was stolen from Shankar. His investigation takes him to as far as Stockholm after he realizes, beyond reasonable doubt, that he hasn’t been an unconscious part of the profiteering business. He seeks to track dear Shankar’s kidney, which takes him to the doorstep of a Swedish man in Stockholm, who admits to having not known well enough the sources of the kidney he had received, in what is perceivably the funniest sequence I’ve seen in any recent Indian film. It also increased the faith I had in Mr. Gandhi’s abilities as a writer-director, whom I had accused for two-thirds of the film as someone who takes himself a little too seriously. 

I shall not tell you what happens of Navin’s efforts to reclaim poor Shankar’s kidney. If he could fly all the way to Stockholm to see what he could do about it, I’m sure you could make it to a movie theatre to find out what happened to his quest, and yes, it does seem like I’m indirectly recommending you to watch the film, only adding to the overwhelming amount of PR mileage it already has. Let me tell you that it is not entirely untrue either. The segment featuring Navin and his little hitchhike across the globe is the best thing about the film that, at one point, accuses itself (and the respectable Maitreya) of intellectual masturbation. While the other two masts of this ‘Ship of Theseus’ have their sails flying a tad too high, that of Navin is the right height to gather good wind. Navin could be your brother, Navin could be your Father; he could even be you. He is the man who knows his predicament but isn’t equipped enough to handle it. And therein lies a further predicament – one that shall never be overcome. 

Past the kidney racket, Navin makes his way to a screening of a few videos of his donor whom, he learns, was a cave-explorer who had met with an untimely death. His case is so exceptional that not only had he donated eight different organs to eight different people (because seven, I suspect, is a number that has already been taken by the Will Smith movie), he had also ensured three of them would have remarkable enough stories that could set sail on the ‘Ship of Theseus’. There is Aliya (Aida Elkashef), the blind photographer who, literally, ‘plays by the ear’ having lost her sight to a cornea infection. There is the Gandhian resurrect in Maitreya (Neeraj Kabi) who, unlike his obvious inspiration, gives up on his ideals. He is an atheist monk who believes in causality and the existence of the soul. A firm anti-animal-testing stance leaves him without options to medicate himself against his liver cirrhosis. The doctor says he needs a transplant. He chooses to let death happen instead. In all his emphasis on preserving the ‘self’ in much the same way that Gandhi had refused allopathic cure, Maitreya incites the argumentative Charvaka (Vinay Shukla) who, out of sheer love for the Guru and an interest to prolong his life, describes to him the meaninglessness of one’s ‘identity’ in the first place. There are more bacteria in the body than there are human cells. Who knows where the body ends and the environment begins? 

By not talking too much about the first two segments, I am not putting them down. I am merely choosing to not explain even further a couple of segments that have already been over-explained with too much dialogue that is written out like cues to an interview. In its defence, ‘Ship of Theseus’ is self-professed dualist. It is only reasonable to have its lines play out in a dialectic. But that does not excuse the fact that ‘Ship of Theseus’ tries to tell its whole life story, plank by plank, each question leading to the next, with a collection of postcards that desperately needed displaying; or so the editor seems to have felt. Mr. Gandhi writes his signature on these shots that do as much as popcorn does to your movie experience, but I think it takes a few minutes into the third segment for one to realize his ability to provide depth, detail and earnestness to an average human being in an average surrounding as he attempts the remarkable. In depicting his futile exercise, and in the big existential joke he could make out of it, Mr. Gandhi redeems himself, at least in my mind’s eye. 

The ending of ‘Ship of Theseus’ warrants a discussion in itself. I have given it away in an earlier part of my review. Let me give you a little more. The eight recipients watch a video of their donor exploring a cave. There is no voiceover, there is minimal sound. To us in the audience, it shows nothing of significance. But we see these people moved to tears; every single one of them – even Navin, our very own Captain Awkward. At that, I found myself transported to a very similar sequence in a film that I need not even name. Toto watches the film-reel in his private theatre at the end of ‘Cinema Paradiso’. By itself, it is a collection of kissing scenes that have been edited out from some films; perhaps about as meaningless as the cave video. To him, however, it is magic. 

‘Ship of Theseus’ does not recreate that magic. And that does not mean it is not a meritorious film. It is perhaps the first time that India has gotten to see a film give this much of an emphasis to shot taking and film production. It also serves to revolutionize film distribution in India - a business model many would be likely to follow. These are merits that deserve mention. What Anand Gandhi, however, doesn’t or perhaps couldn’t do is keep the high-headedness out of a film that could have been much more effective had he not tried so hard. I’m reminded of a Jack Kerouac quote a friend once shared. “One day, I will find the right words. And they will be simple.” Soham Shah will smile in agreement. The rest is what the young Charvaka accused Maitreya of doing – it is intellectual masturbation, and is doomed to be so.

ADMISSION: THE PRINCETON REVIEW

DIRECTED BY PAUL WEITZ 

STARRING: TINA FEY, PAUL RUDD, LILY TOMLIN, NAT WOLFF, GLORIA REUBEN with WALLACE SHAWN and MICHAEL SHEEN 

‘Admission’ has a title that is so mundane it is possibly deceitful. Contextually, it is almost obvious that the word refers to the admissions process at a major university. It cannot be any clearer than, say, a film like ‘Accepted’, which was about (not) getting accepted into college. Coincidentally (and unsurprisingly so), both these words could connote their larger meanings as well. A film that offered a shoddy yet amusing line of defence for the misfits by the misfits, ‘Accepted’ tried to discuss the normative role that university acceptances play in a student’s life, in affirming and/or denying merit. ‘Admission’, similarly, could mean either (or both) of two things. On the one hand, there is admission to the university. On the other, however, it could mean an admission of guilt/regret. 

The film begins and ends with a first person confession that Portia Nathan (Tina Fey), an admissions officer at Princeton University, makes to the audience. From the beginning, we see a semblance of the age-old head-hunter remark of “our company is so competitive that I wouldn’t hire myself now if I had to.” Students, parents, teachers and well-wishers – all of them have but one thing to ask Portia. “What’s the success formula?” Alex Hitchins (Will Smith in ‘Hitch’) might have had the courtesy to give you the answer right in the beginning, but Portia drags the question along until the very end – an answer that’s as obvious as the secret recipe to the noodle soup in ‘Kung Fu Panda’. 

But if anything, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ was not about the question, was it? In as far as I remember the film, it was about a fat panda co-opting martial arts in a way that it suits him. It was the Americanization of the east; of bringing about drastic change in the art of Kung fu. There is no one right way to do anything. There is your way. There is mine. 

In that way, ‘Admission’ is not about Portia answering the question she asks herself. She does give you an answer at the very end – the obvious one. But then you realize it wasn’t necessary. In fact, it only serves to dampen an otherwise remarkable film whose only problem was that it wasn’t exactly as sharp as it ought to have been. This failure of ‘Admission’ to be a truly enthralling movie experience has to do with the fact that it doesn’t really define itself. It’s not over-the-top funny. Neither is it overly heavy on its situational irony. A woman who’s in the business of rejecting/wait-listing people learns to accept things for herself and then tries to bring other people on to her side, fails, decides that the only way to beat the system is to cheat it, only to find herself on the other side of the table where someone else ‘wait-lists’ her. As much as ‘Admission’ features pretty much all things mentioned above, it is still not about showing that woman, perhaps as much as ‘Up in the Air’ was about putting the man of cold logic back in his place. 

Still, there are things about Portia that you could comprehensively hate, just about as much as there was in Ryan Bingham (George Clooney in ‘Up in the Air’) that you could hate. They’re people in a tin can with a hand stretched out through a hole in the side as they try to open the lid, lest they suffocate. By comparing it with 'Up in the Air', I only intend to reaffirm the fact that ‘Admission’ had the potential to be something a lot more serious than what it chose to be; what it ended up being. Portia could have been a lot less apologetic about herself. John Pressman (Paul Rudd) could have come out a little stronger with his push. Michael Sheen does a sort of cameo as Portia’s ten-year boyfriend who calls it off because he knocked a Virginia Woolf scholar up. We could have done without that. What Sheen does as Mark is nothing more than tomfoolery that frustrates the film viewer as much as it frustrates Portia herself by constantly showing up, without any real reason. 

Nonetheless, if you end up not hating these people, do know that it’s not your fault. For there is something soft and real about snobs like Portia and Ryan, that you might just see them for who they really are. They are people who appear to be in control of their lives, only to break from that grand delusion, reconcile to their limitations and use them as a springboard to mount their successes on. The system ensures that it is impossible to succeed, unless you’re prepared to change the very definition of success itself. Everything changes, then. Like how, to Ryan, giving his protégé (Anna Kendrick) a glowing recommendation is enough of a shot at his own redemption. Like how Portia, for the first time in her life perhaps, fights for something she truly believes in – the candidature of the immensely talented Jeremiah Balakian (Nat Wolff) against the rest of the admissions office, including the soon-to-retire Dean of Admissions (Wallace Shawn) and Corinne (Gloria Reuben), Portia’s competitor for the spot. 

The straitjackets in Dean Clarence and Corinne deliver great performances as people who just can’t empathize anymore. To them, an application makes for light reading; they’d take only as much as they can register. Portia, interestingly, imagines students to be sitting in front of her and talking as she reads out each application. While there are moments where she literally ‘pushes them off’ for the sake of over-the-top ruthless humour, the fact that she can visualize candidates sitting across the table and telling her their stories shows her failure (a successful one, perhaps) to be completely objective. It is interesting to note here that we only see how Portia reads an application – not anybody else. It's like the kid in ‘The Sixth Sense’. We see what he sees, and it does what it does to arouse our suspicion. Similarly, Portia sees candidates instead of applications in a clear representation of the demons she battles. We do not see what Corinne sees, we most certainly do not see what Dean Clarence sees. But we assume it is not the same. 

Where ‘Admission’ I thought failed the most was in the back stories it furnishes for all its characters in an effort to define why they stood where they stood. John Pressman is a man with an inheritance who had it all – went to Dartmouth, made it to Harvard Law. It is the singular case of success losing all meaning when one has too much of it, so much so that John proceeds to seek it in a different realm; that of helping others define and find their own version of success. Portia Nathan is not only ambitious, she is also a woman and here she makes a departure from Ryan Bingham’s ‘Up in the Air’ story. Feminism creeps in, unavoidably, with Portia’s mother Susannah (Lily Tomlin) making the biggest ‘admission’ of guilt when she says Portia was the product of a thoughtless moment of passion and an unplanned pregnancy. Portia, with the grace and doggy-eyed beauty of Tina Fey, admits that she cares for her child after all, and has to distinguish her kind of empowerment from her Mother’s in a battle, which, I thought, was unnecessary. 

Moreover, the feminist allusions are so self-defeating that one worries that might have been the intention. Portia wants a man for herself and the child whom she had given away for adoption at birth. Susannah ‘admits’ to having a similar notion. Corinne, the most pragmatic of the lot, has what she claims is a wonderful relationship with her husband. All these women, in a way, define their successes with their ability to find/have found themselves the ‘right man’ and raising the ‘right child’. Even Helen, the Virginia Woolf scholar whom Mark leaves Portia for, gets pregnant and gets married to him, ultimately. It is here, in defining ‘success’ in the context of a woman, that I felt ‘Admission’ was a little problematic. 

Thus, Portia and John both make their cases in ‘Admission’. Portia makes it to the admissions panel at Princeton - who shoot her down with cruel objectivity - and to you in the audience. John makes his case to Portia. They are played by two of the most endearing comics – Fey and Rudd – that Hollywood has ever produced. Their appeal, thus, holds water in front of the audience. Portia accepts John, you accept the both of them. You shall have it no other way. But as far as the film goes, ‘Admission’ is a 2.0 GPA with a glimmer of extra merit, nothing too serious; shows promise, but not quite. 

Which means to the cold rationale of our Princeton selves, it makes the wait-list at best.

THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE: FEATURING THE INIMITABLE MR. STEVE CARELL!

DIRECTED BY DON SCARDINO 

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, STEVE BUSCEMI, OLIVIA WILDE, JIM CARREY with JAMES GANDOLFINI and ALAN ARKIN 

I like to think we’re on a low-tide of humour, lately. This is not to say that Hollywood hasn't been trying. This is to say that most efforts at comedy have been futile, with studios having to turn to the trusted lot to work it out for them. When I say ‘work it out’, I am not talking about box-office returns. I am talking about a funny film that’s actually funny, like ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ which rides on some of the funniest men in Hollywood. 

I write this in the aftermath of ‘the Hangover’, of films that have sincerely tried, which have been pushed and pummeled ahead by the financially turbo-charged studio that would do anything for a laugh – anything but anything remotely funny, that is. I write this in the wake of having encountered people like Jason Sudeikis on screen. I write this in the era of the R-rated rom-com where mainstream actors try their hands at comedy, going for your leg but pulling the rug from under your feet instead. I am not lying when I say I have been more disappointed in this so-called comedy lately than even, say, ‘Man of Steel’ where Superman doesn’t realize the joke’s actually on him. 

It is precisely in this department that ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ works. It is a funny film that is actually funny, and that’s wonderful, given current standards. 

Even otherwise, ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ is an incredible film experience. It is directed by Don Scardino who has directing credits for half the episodes of the Tina Fey vehicle '30 Rock' – possibly the only show I have followed from beginning to glorious end. Though we barely get past star performances on a TV show, Scardino’s ability to run a gag in the subtlest manner possible is evident in almost all episodes that he has directed/overseen on '30 Rock'. And he brings the weight of that experience with directing comedy into a film that desperately needs a hand like that. 

Plot-wise, there is nothing incredible about ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’. Have you watched the Pixar film ‘Cars’? For the sheer delight of wacky storytelling and an inimitable message that John Lasseter delivered through automobiles in a man-eat-man world, ‘Cars’ would rank highest on my list of favourite animated movies. Anyway, that trivia aside, I could take ‘Cars’ and ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’, put them side by side and match each plot detail, one after another. Rockstar protagonist who’s lost his love for the game to some fame that he later realizes is inconsequential? Check. Endearing sidekick who lasts till the very end and might possibly have a sequel written around him? Check. Feisty lady-love who’s probably the most normal character, a buffer between the quick and the dead? Check. Moronic, mindless buffoon of a bad guy who’s meant to make your focus clear and not just be defeated? Check. Yesteryear legend who comes around to up the game of the present day, preferably on the hero’s side? Check. 

Let me tell you that having made all these comparisons and perhaps having realized that ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ is a live-action rendition of ‘Cars’ at best doesn’t change my mind about how good a film it is, because – and let me tell you this too – it is a good film. It has everything that makes a good film good, and this might sound laughable at first. Every film has that, right? Every ‘good film’, at least? I don’t think so. The summer’s biggest film event (read ‘Man of Steel’) stands as a cutting example. 

‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ has Steve Carell play a truly incredible Burt Wonderstone. If there is one man who acts while simultaneously providing a commentary on his acting, it is Carell. Like Owen Wilson did with his voice to Lightning McQueen, Carell accentuates Burt Wonderstone with body language that calls for attention to itself. He is the performer who performs while drawing attention to his performance and the fact that he is, actually, performing. Steve Buscemi as Wonderstone’s partner and magical friend Anton Marvelton is the exact opposite – he is the Mater in this movie, oblivious to his own innocence. Olivia Wilde is beautiful as Jane/Nicole, the aspiring starlet magician who sees the human being in the money-machine that is Burt Wonderstone and has the heart to sit him down and talk. 

Two performances need mention. First is the late James Gandolfini as the casino magnate Doug Munny, who is so ruthless it’s actually funny. Gandolfini’s performance and an uneventful death has made me consider watching ‘the Sopranos’. I guess I’d get around to it as time permits, but here as Doug, the over-achieving shark, Gandolfini joins the likes of Andy Garcia and Al Pacino in their respective stints as bad guy in the Ocean’s series. He is unbelievable. 

The second performance is that of Alan Arkin, who’s the funny equivalent of Paul Newman’s Doc. Hudson in ‘Cars’. Arkin plays Rance Holloway, a former Vegas headliner who lost it for his magic, went into oblivion and, later, to an old age home that Burt Wonderstone ends up performing in. Coincidentally, Holloway has been Wonderstone’s role model and the reason he took up magic in the first place. Together, the two of them contribute to Wonderstone’s rediscovery as Arkin belts out some of the funniest sequences in the film, including and especially his final ‘disappearing act’. 

Out of the six main characters, I have thus knowingly and with full awareness left out one, perhaps the most eye-capturing of performances. Jim Carrey as Steven Gray the ‘Brain Rapist’ (a clear parody of Criss Angel: Mind-Freak, where I thought Wonderstone himself sounded a lot like David Copperfield) might own the role, but the character is as insignificant to ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ as Chick Hicks was to ‘Cars’. It has to do with the fact that Wonderstone’s problem is with himself and not with competition. Success here gets redefined as his ability to rediscover the magic in himself, which he will and does, with or without Steven Gray. There is a scene where Gray and Wonderstone have a war of words and Wonderstone tells Gray that what he does is “not magic, it is monkey porn.” I took that as a subtle comment on Carrey’s own presence and performance, even though I’m sure it wasn’t intended to be that. To see Carrey invest in such a second-rung character was pitiful to say the least. 

But that doesn’t spoil the fun one bit, and I take the liberty to say here that it is all Steve Carell. Mr. Carell is the perfect reaction-comic. He’s someone who can make stupid knock, knock jokes work, because he’d have the best things to say in return. By that I mean he’d have the worst things to say in response and they would end up being funny, only adding to his character. I’m still haunted by some of his comebacks in ‘Date Night’ as I write this line; as James Franco’s incredulous statement rings: “Is that all you’ve got? Is that your best line?” Carell thus complements Carrey’s monkey-act like nobody can; like nobody ever will. 

I wasn’t kidding when I said that there could be a sequel, and that if there was a sequel, I’d watch it. I would like it to be called ‘The Remarkable Anton Marvelton’ with a bigger part played by ‘The Astonishing Jane’ as Burt Wonderstone sits a quiet life teaching magic to children, heading the Holloway School of Magic. This would mean a return of all these men (and woman) to save Hollywood again from the clutches of its evil witches of comedy, their laughs mirthless. And I would love for that film to be directed by the Skillful Mr. Scardino again – the man behind this self-parody, who performs his tricks as well as he makes fun of them; who is both the Farrelly Brothers on steroids, minus the shit humour.

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES: "THERE WILL BE BLOOD"

DIRECTED BY DEREK CIANFRANCE 

STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, BRADLEY COOPER, EVA MENDES, ROSE BYRNE, DANE DeHAAN, BEN MENDELSOHN, MAHERSHALA ALI, EMORY COHEN with BRUCE GREENWOOD and RAY LIOTTA 

I write this line at about fifty minutes into ‘the Place beyond the Pines’ which has a runtime of about two and a half hours, and I believe what I am about to say will most definitely hold true for the rest of the film as well. 

Roger Ebert would have loved to watch this one.

It is the life story of two different men with not-so-different lives and yet could easily be construed as being each other’s foil. One of them is ‘Handsome’ Luke, played by Ryan Gosling who more or less repeats his performance from the Nicolas Winding Refn chiller ‘Drive’. The other is Bradley Cooper who takes the next mature turn after ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’, playing one blue-eyed boy after another. If these two men have their own ghosts to both leave behind and strategically adapt into this feature, director Derek Cianfrance has one of his own in the riveting ‘Blue Valentine’, his debut film, that pretty much set the bar for him as a filmmaker. For him to have made the shift from the broken marriage in the old country house to the steel cages of the phenomenal ‘Ring of Death’ stunt is remarkable to say the least. 

‘the Place beyond the Pines’ has Gosling play ‘Handsome Luke’, a motorcycle stunt performer. At the locus of brute aggression and the sense of responsibility and ownership that it brings along, Gosling is not far from home having played the ‘Driver’ in ‘Drive’, who too was, incidentally, a race-car driver who takes to crime. At the very beginning of the film, we are introduced to a relationship that would never quite take off – one that Luke shares with Romina (Eva Mendes). The tension in their little interaction tells us there has been more than meets the eye as Luke tells Romina he would not be seeing her for a year at least and hence would like to ‘get a beer.’ Romina declines saying she has a man in her life. Luke turns tail and goes his own way. 

The next scene takes us to a year later when Luke hits Schenectady again as he said he would. He waits for Romina after his performance. He drops by at her place when she fails to show up. Romina now has a golden-haired infant that is, for all practical purposes, unlikely to have come from her then-partner Kofi (Mahershala Ali). The answer is simple. The baby is his. He has been named Jason and Luke gets the inimitable privilege of watching his kid’s baptism as a visitor at church. 

A man knows his place as the place his son is going to grow. If it is Schenectady, then so be it. Luke tells Romina he knows what it is like to have grown up without a Father. We see what he is talking about. We also see he does not wish the same for his child. Luke wants to be around and also wants to provide for his child. In that we see his predicament. His presence requires him to let go of his only source of income – the circus stunt, which he chooses to quit; which puts a question mark on his next vow. How will he provide for his child? Enter Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), a car mechanic who develops a dangerous fascination for Luke and his skills. In a sequence of sheer muscle and in awe of the same, Cianfrance introduces us to a partnership that compares itself to that of Hall and Oates. Luke is the man in need. Robin is the man who can provide, but he can provide only so much. He has a very simple principle, however, as a means to resolve this predicament: What you cannot have, you steal. 

At this point, I need to give you a little insight into the town of Schenectady. It is a town of orthodoxy in the state of New York, which seems to have the landscape to go with its principles. It is a parish with a Mayor and a police force to protect its banks that are no casino-vaults unlike its step-sisters in Vegas as seen in ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ or any other top-rung Hollywood heist movie. In the aftermath of Ben Affleck’s ‘the Town’, however, one could find resemblances between Charlestown, Boston and Schenectady, where both are places where there is as much of a place for the struggling thief as there is for the police-force-in-command who is ultimately going to prevail. Two brawls and a dire situation brings Luke head-to-head with Officer Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper). The man takes a second to come to terms with his own fall, telling the woman (Romina) to not tell his son. And Avery Cross becomes the accidental hero, the man who had the pluck to stay right through a testing encounter as we walk into the second act. 

Avery wakes up in the hospital with a bullet to his knee as his superior (Bruce Greenwood) presses him to part with detail – who shot first? “Did he raise his hand and did you shoot, or did he raise his hand and he shoots and you shoot? Is that what happened? He shot first? Well, it looks like you’re saying he shot first.” From that moment on, we see this sequence of events get written on the airwaves, about town; in stone, in short, leaving behind a legacy Avery can only half-heartedly defend. 

I come back to the point where I said it is easy to construe Avery as Luke’s foil and vice-versa. But then while they could be men of different make, we find they are governed by similar ideals and, hence, find themselves in the same predicament. If Luke finds himself responsible for an unplanned pregnancy and a child as a consequence, Avery is the cause and effect of his own reputation, much to his discomfort. Both deal with their failure to be the men they would ideally have liked to be. Avery finds failure in his success. Luke had found his in his inability to be a good Father. Only time can salvage these men from their 'failures.'

‘The Place Beyond the Pines’, thus, deals with the simplest, yet the deepest-rooted desire for a man to be someone whom his son could look up to, and for the son to be someone his Father could/could have been proud of. The last time I saw a film convincingly portray both this aspiration and the failure to meet it is the 2007 James Mangold adaptation of the classic western ‘3:10 to Yuma’. The only thing the ranger wants is for his son to look up to him. It is the only thing he asks of the criminal he escorts across the country. It is the only thing the criminal cannot give, on his part. 

To heed to the call of a film that asks for its men to showcase both their insecurities as well as their little bursts of honest admittance needs some nuanced performances from its actors. Gosling as the ruffian who tries too hard to scrub the grease off of his permanently-tattooed self is only too comfortable playing his part. Cooper too, on the other hand, as the boy who doesn’t deserve to be in the league of men and knows it too, delivers. They both are complemented by Cianfrance’s shot-taking, which caresses its men like lambs who are only too tender for film-butchers to sharpen their knives for. We have long shots of extreme close-ups of either of these men, both blue-eyed, both star-gazing with a loss of an idea on what they could better do. In that way, it is prudent and well-deserving of Cianfrance to say that the director plays the third man burdened with the weight of an immense responsibility – that of having to tell the stories of these two other men in the most striking manner possible. And in that, Cianfrance makes it a three-on-three. All men deliver. 

The third act of ‘The Place beyond the Pines’ is no big surprise. If there is a reason as to why I shall not discuss it, it is to save time, both yours and mine. Let me put it this way. Your great deeds will not just end with you. Daniel Plainview has his adopted son to answer to – the one he renders deaf at about an hour into ‘There will be Blood’. Both Avery and Luke have sons. It is only about time that one will have to answer the other, and needless to say, ‘The Place beyond the Pines’ takes that time to put its men (Avery, at least) in a position where they will have to confront their demons. It is a faithful revival of the fabled morality question, which we saw glimpses of in films like ‘Infernal Affairs’ (remade into ‘The Departed’ in 2005) and Affleck’s ‘Gone Baby Gone’. It is that film which, if you are any human being who can even remotely place yourself in either of these men’s shoes, is sure to knock your socks off. Cianfrance puts a gun to your mouth and hisses, asking you to open. It is a test that asks you to yield. In all likelihood, he won’t shoot. For you will pass his test. You will yield. 

I am aware I have left out two of the most significant characters who also are backed by brilliant performances from their respective actors, both women. I am also aware that I have called ‘The Place beyond the Pines’ a film ultimately about its men. It does not mean that the women do not play a significant part. Michelle Monaghan was about as vital to ‘Gone Baby Gone’ as Casey Affleck was. The film, however, was his predicament that consequentially became hers too. Likewise, the women in ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ (Romina and Mrs. Cross) find themselves effected by the men in their lives rather than the other way around, ‘Men’ here not limited to Luke and Avery, just so you know. There is also the underlying legitimacy question. While Romina bears and gives birth to Luke’s bastard child, Mrs. Cross (Rose Byrne) is Avery’s lawfully-wedded wife. It takes not just a refreshing perspective, but also an incredible amount of sensitivity and care to handle the above-mentioned detail. In that, ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ finds itself in safe hands. 

Perhaps there would be a time when this film would be discussed as the next feature after Michael Mann’s ‘Heat’ that carried itself on skill, sensibility and raw adrenaline with its lead characters sharing screen-space for the tiniest possible span of time. There would be a time when Gosling and Cooper would match the stature of the film-giants in Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, in which event ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ would be seen at par with ‘Heat’, with the likes of ‘3:10 to Yuma’ and ‘Gone Baby Gone’ nearby. For it is nothing short of a classic - all it has to do is bide its time. Much like Jason.

MAN OF STEEL: RESOUNDING HOLLOW

DIRECTED BY ZACK SNYDER 

STARRING: HENRY CAVILL, AMY ADAMS, MICHAEL SHANNON, KEVIN COSTNER, DIANE LANE, ANTJE TRAUE, HARRY LENNIX, CHRISTOPHER MELONI, RICHARD SCHIFF with AYELET ZURER, LAURENCE FISHBURNE and RUSSELL CROWE 

There is nothing about Man of Steel that we have not seen previously in the beginning story of any given superhero. And I believe when I say that, I am not judging it too harshly. We are in a superhero bubble. It is a time when everyone wants their pet superhero franchise running. Some want more than one, clearly. Christopher Nolan’s investment in Zack Snyder’s reboot of the Superman franchise – one more to DC, against Marvel’s shipload – is suggestive. Having directed the hugely successful Batman trilogy, Nolan teams up with buddy David S. Goyer to write the treatment for Man of Steel. 

The single biggest question on my mind – which I voiced out loud as well – as the end credits rolled was this: What was there in this story that it needed two people to write it? It is the sort of story that, if I told you play-by-play, I would still not have spoilt the film for you. Not any more than the promos would have done for you already. Let me disappoint you further by saying this: There is nothing more to Man of Steel than they have already shown to you on the teaser trailers, and I don’t know who is to blame for that – Syncopy films or its super-talented writing team, led by the inimitable David S. Goyer who is as good a writer as his Christian faith. We saw that in the Invisible (2007). We see it again in Man of Steel. 

Man of Steel has Superman tread the fine line in the Church and State question. America reconciles to Superman and further chooses to believe in him. He is the southern kid raised with the belief that great things are left to God and God alone. But then he could be God if he got around to it; if and when the time is right. Pa Kent (Kevin Costner) says so. In Clark Kent’s (Henry Cavill) life, he assumes a riskier position than Uncle Ben had with Peter Parker in the Spiderman universe. He assumes the role of the Father with full knowledge that he is not and that someday Clark would come to realize it as well. In fact, he would make sure that he does. It is sinful for a man to not know what he has been sent here for, especially when it has been pre-programmed and written down for him. And it goes like this: 

Go to Earth. Get raised in good faith. Find Lois Lane, for it was written in heaven that you should end up with her. Make Krypton live in you, cell-for-cell. 

I think it must be clear by now that I am only familiar with the Superman comics in as far as knowing they exist (seeing how I haven’t expressed outrage at factual inconsistencies). Maybe a little more. With this limited knowledge, I have always thought of DC’s Superman to be inadvertently similar to Nietzsche’s Superman. And while I would have gladly liked my misconception to be rectified, I did not expect it to be overthrown completely. Superman, after all, is what every human aspires to be, isn’t he? He has super-human strength. He see past things, he can hear things that are normally inaudible. Best of all, he can beat Earth’s gravity. He can just push off, if you see what I’m saying. 

A Kryptonian expat by the name of Faora (Antje Traue, does better in latex than Scarlett Johansson could ever have dreamt) taunts Superman in the middle of a duel – You are weak, because you believe in morality. That comes crashing. It had never occurred to me that this is one place where Superman departs from Nietszchean hero-morality. Superman is against evolution. He is the son of Jor-El (Russell Crowe), a Professor X/Martin Luther King Jr. type pacifist. He believes in coexistence – of Kryptonians and humans on Earth – conveniently excluding the fact that they are multitudes stronger than humans and that the Earth’s conditions nurture them in a way it can never do to us. This means Kryptonians would end up wiping out the human race in the survival of the fittest. 

Now, I do not know how much of it is from the comics, but we learn that Kal-El is the only child of Krypton who was born out of intercourse. Everyone else, including and especially General Zod (Michael Shannon, a tad too angry), are mass-manufactured – they are sons and daughters of Krypton who are hence bound to the betterment of their race. They do not have the conception of a Mother or a Father like Kal-El does. On top of that he has a sense of southern masculinity where he replaces Pa Kent as guardian and protector of his Ma(w) (Diane Lane). The result is some delightful man-to-man action where Superman shows Zod what would happen if he dared threaten his Mother.

Such scenes abound in Man of Steel, which are made for the excitable movie-goer. There is the interrogation scene where Lois Lane (Amy Adams) flirts like she knows her Superman more than anyone else. There is repeated mention of Superman as one under complete control of his powers, so much that for him to surrender, he must choose to. You let them put you on handcuffs? Lois asks him, bemused. Superman shrugs and says he had to give people the assurance that he was not above and beyond them. Moments later, in a burst of exasperation, he tells the FBI off saying he has been around for thirty-three years in the world and has not harmed anyone. If you do not see where I’m going with this, soon to follow is a scene where Superman goes to Church. He wants clarification. That he would risk his neck for the people of the Earth is certain. But could he trust Zod with his word? Superman walks out before the Pastor could say anything, but he runs after him asking him to take the leap of faith first. 

But then he needn't be told that. For he is (insert irritating Hans Zimmer-styled thumping here) the son of God.

Almost downright creationist, maybe even based out of the Genesis at places, Man of Steel has more ways to insult the viewer than merely though its painful clichés. Random picturesque shots adorn flashback sequences, adding to aesthetic value in a very Tree of Life way. These shots further elongate sequences where Clark – the kid, the adolescent and the helpless young man – beats himself down repeatedly wondering why he has been sent to planet Earth. To add to it are disgraceful lines that are high on intensity, low on meaning. It would have helped if there was a little more tongue-in-cheek humour that Cavill seems more than capable of. But no. Superman is the next-door introvert who keeps quiet because he is not sure if he has the right thing to say, saving people like that’s all his heart tells him to do. He would barbeque your truck on some electric poles and leave it behind as a thank you note rather than show some attitude.

And then the action sequences. Except for the final clash between Superman and Zod which has some ingenious CGI – you know you have reached the next level when you add shakycam to computer-generated imagery – the action scenes are straight out something like the Avengers or the Transformers series. I mean, sure America has seen a few skyscrapers fall. In Man of Steel, you lose count of those. You remember I spoke of a duel between Superman and the Kryptonian Faora earlier? Easily the hardest to follow, the most you can make of it are rings and blurs of red that say that Superman is being tossed around amidst flying debris. He takes a few, gives them back. We know the transaction happens although we never see it. And in the end, the Kryptonians leave – be it voluntarily, or sucked into a black hole. 

I read an interesting article that said Man of Steel holds the record for the most product-placements in any film, beating Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Other than a neat glimpse of Lexcorp hinting at a possible sequel, I don’t see how it makes sense. For instance, Superman consumes Budweiser. Superman uses Gilette, Toshiba and shops at Sears. Given the skilful hands the film rested in, it would have helped to incorporate the products better in the script – they could perhaps have done a self-parody for all its worth. A Superman movie being just another studio venture, to me, seems unacceptable.

Overall, Man of Steel has a very promising Superman in Cavill, a stellar Kevin Costner as Pa Kent – who is so good playing St. Joseph that it is most unfortunate he had to die the way he does – and a spell-binding last act that seems to be the Nolan trademark. There are a few more curious goings-on like the relationship between Perry White (Laurence Fishburne, the first Black man in the role) and Jenny, and hints of chemistry between Faora and the unstoppable Zod which might raise some eyebrows on comic book nerds. Otherwise, the only thing significantly original about Man of Steel is the rather distasteful beard that’s slapped on to Zod which – for a change – has David S. Goyer written on it.