RIGHT UPPERCUT WITH GENTLE BLUE EYES

 

DIRECTED BY SHAWN LEVY 

STARRING: HUGH JACKMAN, DAKOTA GOYO, EVANGELINE LILY, ANTHONY MACKIE, OLGA FONDA, KARL YUNE with KEVIN DURAND, JAMES REBHORN and HOPE DAVIS 

The closest association ‘Real Steel’ might have with the Oscars is that both happen to take place in the same country. That, or it might’ve been nominated for a couple of technical awards – like sound mixing or editing or special effects, because the film is a fairly good audio-visual achievement. In the event of my Oscar-lead-up, I should probably have picked up a ‘Best Film’ nominee from the past that I hadn’t discussed – like ‘War Horse’ or ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ – or even bothered watching. 

The last film I took up to analyze – David O. Russell’s ‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ (scroll down for review or click here) – found myself at an all-time low on the review-scale. I found out what was going wrong. This year, I find, has had very little to inspire. Every year, I try to catch up on the ‘best films’ made with one desire – to come across something that can truly represent this generation, this era, this paradigm to completion, and not merely on a technological scale. 

‘Life of Pi’ was supposed to be that movie. It didn’t work for me. ‘Argo’ would be Hollywood's pride, mixing the studio-picture with American consciousness. Tarantino hasn’t ever attempted to dissociate himself from the film world and represent humanity on the whole. ‘Lincoln’, again, sounds like a mix of both – of classic Hollywood storytelling and American values. I would not go to the lengths of calling these films jingoistic, but you get what I’m saying, right? 

There’s a whole lot of absentees. Ramin Bahrani – without whom it’s been a painful three years – needs to come back. So do Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden. It’s too soon to expect Thomas McCarthy, after ‘Win Win’ the year before last – delightful; one of the year’s best, easily. Alexander Payne has a film coming soon, set in his hometown. It’s the second time I’ve referred to him on a review, in two days. Not good. 

I’ve always loved cinema. I hate to sound distinguishing, but for someone who loves film, I haven’t been content. I think the creative world can do better. There’s a lot of films I haven’t watched. There’s a lot of films I don’t even have access to. Given that, maybe I’m selling it short. But that’s only because I don’t have the luxury of patience. It’s been a year since I’ve had a film experience that’s made me truly belong. The last time I had that was when I watched Marc Webb’s ‘the Amazing Spider-Man’ – a story of youth, mortality and crazy romance. In a world where superhero movies have bitter, morbid love stories, it was a kiss of life exchanged between young guns firing at the same time. 

Contrast that with a film that kept saying “life’s hard enough as it is,” ‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ made it harder. I struggle with down-to-earth fiction. I think it takes a tall story to really bring one down to the ground. That, or life itself. I think it’s a thin line – I’m actually debating it inside my head. What Woody Allen could do with ‘Midnight in Paris’, he didn’t do with ‘Manhattan.’ 

Okay, that's not quite true. It's out of order as well. I can’t discuss filmmaking trends with Allen as an example, even if he has shown changes with time (at his own pace). 

The point of contention is this. On the one hand, a slight stretch of imagination in a film that promises reality seems unforgivable. On the other, we have those that never attempt to come close to the ground and yet find a way to appeal to the deepest of your senses. 

‘Real Steel’ is one such film. It’s set in a future that looks like the past. Culture gets accentuated – human beings get more rustic as robots resemble them to the best of their ability. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) manages one that’s as untrustworthy as he is – it takes a good, solid beating, he can’t patch it up anymore. He moves on. One more to the dirty pile. Son Max Kenton (Dakota Goyo) arrives, bringing with him this ancient-looking, puny specimen that shows some traits they hadn’t seen in robots before – the ability to obey and understand, the latter kept a secret throughout the film, part of a punch-line. 

He calls the robot ‘Atom.’ It looks nice and friendly. If it had lips, it would smile. Max shares a bond with it that’s neither made to sound too special, nor left unstated. He brings it to Charlie, a washed-out boxer from the golden era, made in Hollywood. Deep in debt and no robot to spare, Charlie is pretty much ‘anything goes.’ He goes with Atom, teaching him boxing in something that’s, interestingly, called the ‘shadow mode.’ It means the robot would imitate anything that he does, where what it does is mere shadow. 

I spoke about jingoism, right? Well, the bad guy here is a bot called Zeus that has Darth Vader written all over it – in a film that’s all about father and son, it could’ve well been Atom’s dad, for all you know. Zeus is of Japanese design – made by this man called Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) – and is managed by a Russian tycoon called Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda), two people who might as well have been talking exhibits in a display of stereotypes. There’s a cowboy who calls a black man (Anthony Mackie) ‘homey’ who calls him ‘partner’ in return. They bond over a hundred grand the partner wouldn’t cough up. 

Alright, one too many challengers in one too many big fights over the years. Agreed. ‘Real Steel’ almost faithfully (deliberately?) follows ‘Rocky’ with its plotline. ‘Rocky’ was the everyday man’s struggle for recognition. ‘Real Steel’ is a man’s search for himself, there being no surprise in the place where he finds himself again. The robot has twinkling blue eyes that seem to invite you into its depths. So does the boy. It’s not the first time that Shawn Levy has handled something like this – he directed ‘Night at the Museum’ and its sequel, both of which stick to the theme of man discovering himself in something seemingly inanimate. “I just want you to fight for me,” says Max, in the scene just before the last act. Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) didn’t need to be told this. Neither does Charlie, but then Max has the bigger mouth. 

There are places where ‘Real Steel’ exasperates you with its faith in Hollywood clichés. But it has an undercurrent that’s fairly consistent. What can’t win a fist-fight beats you with a show of heart, in the manner of saying too much as opposed to never saying what needs to be said. 

To Mr. Levy and the ‘Real Steel’ camp, technology is about holograms and fancy screens where the wires don’t show. Atom is an old-timer even in that respect. He steams up like a bad radiator, his wires spark and his eyes flicker as he staggers like he’s disorientated – at one point, the commentator actually uses that word, with quite a bit of ‘almost-human’ references thrown in as well. Somehow, you wish it was a little under-played a little. Like ‘Cinderella Man’ maybe. Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe) would make a fair Charlie, give or take a few pounds. And I’m most definitely not comparing boxing styles here. 

‘Real Steel’ is ‘Rocky’ with Adrian replaced by a brat to make it more about men than before. Where, among a bunch of beasts and bureaucrats, man triumphs. Well, almost triumphs, with scope for betterment – betterment that means getting together, holding close to those who matter as Hollywood defines them, in a world that won’t go beyond the boxing ring. It’s a sturdy-but-modest piece of furniture with a load of varnish it could’ve done without. And it passes woodshop, with honours.

The film played on TV when I desperately thought I needed a break from this year’s monotony and the overflowing list of films I’m yet to watch. It’s the tall film I thought I needed to bring me back to ground level. Having sparred with robots, I should – hopefully – be able to deal with humans better now.

TOO MUCH SILVER LINING, UNDERESTIMATING GRAY

DIRECTED BY DAVID O. RUSSELL 

STARRING: BRADLEY COOPER, JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ROBERT DE NIRO, JACKIE WEAVER, JOHN ORTIZ, JULIA STILES, SHEA WIGHAM, PAUL HERMAN with CHRIS TUCKER and ANUPAM KHER 

There’s something good and great about putting all your cards on the table. It also tells me whether I’d want to play my hand as part of an informed decision. It’s double-edged; it’s also the only way to go. The world can thrive on lies, deceit and sleights of hand. I wouldn’t want to. I put all my cards on the table. I’d expect you to do that as well. Fairness could be over-demanding like that. And it’s only fair that it is, if you think about it. 

‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ is a lot like Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence). She’s the page-turner on David O. Russell’s script. She’s the meta-statement he makes through the film. She’s an active part of the rhetoric as well. I’d get back to that at a later point on this review, but accepting her is similar to accepting the film; it’s too tempting not to. By that I don’t mean a one-woman no-show. The film is anything but that. And, nonetheless, this is a woman who had held her whole office to ransom before she went to war with herself. The promos call it ‘sex-addiction.’ I think that’s a bad term to call the situation itself, to begin with, let alone hers. But she has a reputation. 

Patrick ‘Pat’ Solitano (Bradley Cooper, in his first ever acting role) sticks his neck out to change that reputation of hers. He’s fresh out of a mental facility and is diagnosed as having been undiagnosed bipolar – Dr. Patel (Anupam Kher) does that diagnosis for the audience. Their interaction is convenient. You come to learn that Pat - previously a history-sub at the local school - had assaulted the history teacher whom his wife Nikki (Brea Bee, unspeaking) had an affair with. You come to learn there’s a trigger (Zoolander, anyone?) – ‘My Cherie Amour’ by Stevie Wonder – their wedding song that was, ironically, playing when he caught them in the shower together. You come to learn he has a history with delusion and violence, in the fact that he almost beat the man to death. You come to learn there is a restraining order. 

This is as useful as any Indian actor has ever been in a Hollywood motion picture. 

Oh, and even though you don’t really need Dr. Patel for that, you come to learn that Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) is just about as crazy. And when I call Pat crazy, I don’t refer to his diagnosed condition as much as I refer to the method he chooses to fight it. It’s called ‘Excelsior’ – a Latin term that translates to ‘ever upward’ – as American as it can get. In fact, it’s supposed to be the motto of New York city, something the Eagles should’ve known before they let Pat hit the stands in their game against the Giants. Pat intends to recycle his negative energies, put them in the garbage bag he wears, and transform them into positive energies. Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) tries something similar with his ‘seven-step success’ plan in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, if you remember. Both films represent as much as they parody the American household. 

Russell does a good job fleshing out the characters that make the household and beyond, most of whom have a mix of craft and genuineness to back them, in terms of actors and performances. Jackie Weaver, as the ever-frightened Dolores Solitano, Pat’s mother who shuttles between two madmen – one who bets his life and future on a Football team, the other finding himself entangled in such a wager – is a revelation. Russell won Melissa Leo the Supporting Actress Oscar, last time around. Ms. Weaver is among the lot this time –I’m glad she is. It’s hard to play married to De Niro, the comic. You’ve seen Blythe Danner patronize him in the ‘Meet the Parents’ series. There are those Hollywood type parents who win your love with the way they screw up. Weaver, however, sets her own unblemished record. She inspires sincerity in a film that makes an effort to live up to hers. 

Now, I spoke of Pat’s entanglements – there are two. Pat Sr. who wants father-and-son time on his own holds one end of the line. The other belongs to the ex-wife inside Pat’s head – a commitment he had made to himself. To help him transcend, Tiffany entangles herself in both. What follows is two Hollywood clichés – of the messenger and the guiding light – in a film that states quite clearly it doesn’t want to play out like Ernest fucking Hemingway wrote it. 

Here, I come back to my first point on how the film spreads its cards out on the table for everyone to see. It looks promising. You look at yours; you play Pat to its Tiffany impersonation. You have your own ex-wives and Father-concepts, right? Films have come and films have gone that have told you it’s okay to be crazy – the whole world is. ‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ falls in line. It skates on thin ice with denser material below. Like I said, there’s an ex-wife in the picture. We don’t really know the reality in that relationship. Nikki (unspeaking, as I deliberated) doesn’t have her say. Pat has his. It’s David O. Russell speaking, actually. He wants his happy ending. Tiffany deserves it. Jennifer Lawrence, the hottest choice to play self-confident-but-fragile these days, deserves it too. 

Still, I find myself in disagreement. Maybe because I like my Hemingways and Alexander Paynes intact. Maybe because (and this is crucial) by putting itself out there, saving nothing for mystery, the film happened to reduce itself to an option than a mind-instructed, necessary pursuit – pretty much the risk that Tiffany runs, half the time. There’s a voice inside my head that said “the worst I can do right now is consent to marry you,” on Pat’s behalf. Maybe I think the girl doesn’t deserve that either. And who said 'sex-addiction' finds its cure in high-fidelity? Maybe I wanted Pat to be put in that spot, where he is one option among many, for Tiffany. Maybe the right one, but still - an option.

Or maybe it’s just a mood-swing of mine. And maybe I would shed tears of joy watching the film another time, when I’ve taken my meds.

ON ETERNAL SUNSHINE AND SPOTLESS MINDS

DIRECTED BY LORENE SCAFARIA 

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, MELANIE LYNSKEY, ADAM BRODY, ROB CORDDRY, TONITA CASTRO, DEREK LUKE, T.J. MILLER with PATTON OSWALT, NANCY CARELL and MARTIN SHEEN 

Lorene Scafaria wrote and directed ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ that starred Kat Dennings, Michael Cera and Ari Graynor. You can almost see that in the premise of her new film ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.’ A woman who is in control of an existing relationship meets a man who isn’t. The difference here is that now he has the option to not want to do anything about it. Nick O’Leary (Cera’s character in ‘Nick and Norah’) needed mending. Dodge Peterson, (Steve Carell) on the other hand, awaits doomsday. The least he can do is sit tight. 

The thing about casting Steve Carell is that you’d find the character hollowed beyond what you’d have intended him to be. Dodge has just had his wife (played, incidentally, by Carell’s real wife Nancy Carell) drop him like he’s got dirt all over. He goes over to a friend’s place in the aftermath. The friend’s wife, initially, sets him up with a friend of hers (Melanie Lynskey) who intends to get the best out of the rest of her days. She then makes a pass at him herself. “Linda (Dodge’s wife) got to do what she wanted to do,” she says. “Why not me?” Dodge is dumbstruck. His only answer is to jump the fence and run away. He does exactly that. 

Penny (Keira Knightley) is introduced to us before she’s introduced to Dodge. We have a shot of her leaving her boyfriend (Adam Brody) as he clings to the door like it’s her, not letting go. Her hair short, Knightley reminded me of her character in ‘Love Actually,’ Richard Curtis’ collage of love stories. She’s from England – not New England, old England – and has an accent. That’s about the only thing about her that is strange in a character that is archetypical American. Emily Blunt was an example in ‘the Five-Year Engagement.’ I don’t know if it’s a trend, but if it is, it’s worth noticing. 

The film begins like it’s going to hang loose on an existential thread, but quickens to define a task for itself by means of its lead characters. Dodge comes across a letter that hadn’t quite reached him, from a high-school sweetheart by the name of Olivia. “Is she the one that got away?” Penny asks him. “Well, they all got away,” he responds, with Carell’s defeatist smile. “She was just the first one.” In that letter, needless to say, Olivia expresses undying love that had just resurfaced, given recent events. Having mentioned he hasn’t got the time or energy to handle ‘someone new,’ Dodge fixates on a past that he intends to bring to whatever remained of a future. 

Penny, on the other hand, calls it quits – something we see right through. It’s not even the usual movie-resolution. “I haven’t seen two people as much in love as they (her parents) are,” she says, when she insinuates that that’s what had possibly had her set such high standards for herself. 21 days wouldn’t be enough to find the one. Knightley works like a miracle in both aspects of frivolity and intensity that doesn’t help a character who finds herself in the most predictable of positions. There is, for instance, a sequence where Penny takes Dodge to Speck (Derek Luke), another ex-boyfriend, who claims he knows her enough to know she’s a “survivalist, more than a romantic,” and hence would choose to stay with him. You smirk because you know better. 

The writer, you find, distorts characters with whims of her own. Is it like Dodge to have his Dad (Martin Sheen) fly her back to where she’s from? Debatable. But mostly, yes. Is it like Penny to come back? You don’t know, for Penny isn’t Penny anymore. The end of the world is bound to do strange things to those who are to face it; perhaps more to those who want to write about it. Lars Von Trier showed us with his ‘Melancholia.’ ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’ could’ve been better if only the ‘end of the world’ part was driven home stronger. What we have looks like a meta-narrative of two characters who are, slowly, becoming aware that their film is going to end. And they simply had to do what the author intended them to do – one shaken out of her skin because she doesn’t know what she’s doing, the other ‘madly in love’ for he’s known to be resolute. 

Yet again, Scafaria evokes memories of another film that you’d almost think she has tried to implicate it. Penny asks Dodge to not let her fall asleep. In ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ Clementine (Kate Winslet) asks Joel (Jim Carrey) to not let her sleep so she can cling to her memories – the last she has of them together. Penny’s excuse is hypersomnia. She says she could sleep through an apocalypse and not know the world had ended. But she couldn’t sleep through a flight back home, which means she wouldn’t sleep through an apocalypse. Dodge doesn’t have to do anything. It’s all the work of the end of days - on two promising characters and a writer who shows promise, but in flashes.

THE COLOUR, THE TEXTURE, THE FLAVOUR - OF EXCESS

DIRECTED BY AKIVA SCHAFFER 

STARRING: BEN STILLER, VINCE VAUGHN, JONAH HILL, RICHARD AYOADE, ROSEMARIE DEWITT, WILL FORTE, DOUG JONES, ERIN MORIARTY and BILLY CRUDUP 

‘the Watch,’ previously called ‘Neighbourhood Watch,’ doesn’t start with the usual crash-land of spaceship or meteorite that’d give the entire plot away. There’s never been a movie where the alien wins. There’s only been those, occasionally, where there isn’t a battle as such. Seth Rogen’s involvement (as co-writer, along with buddy Evan Goldberg and Jared Stern) takes you back to the likes of ‘Paul’ on how a mildly successful comedy could be, in terms of contemporary entertainment value. ‘the Watch,’ in comparison, has very few laughs, all in bad taste. The sad part is that you think these characters deserve better. 

Perhaps this could be accounted for by my familiarity with Rogen and his work, but I could almost see ‘the Watch’ shaping up – in the writer’s room and out. Firstly, I think it’s kind of sad that they had to change the title. The ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ poster with the ‘Say no to Aliens’ sign on it gave you some idea on what you were up against. Even though ‘the Watch’ doesn’t exactly keep it a secret – its premise is established in the sequence that immediately follows the opening credits – you’re still confused on what the movie is about. 

The opening credits show a middle-aged man doing middle-aged things about a town called Glenview in Ohio, keeping away from his over-eager wife. He’s in a lot of clubs, we find, but does nothing that means anything. Is this a film about purpose, then? Would it raise the existential question and drop it without an answer, taking to convincing instead, making it a bittersweet mid-life experience of sorts? Ben Stiller, the man who’s perfect for the role, has himself been in a couple of movies where the lacklustre individual finds himself in the midst of the extraordinary. If the ‘Night at the Museum’ movies amount to anything at all, that is. 

“He’s the perfect guy,” I can hear Rogen say. “He’s a little less sorted out, you know, because he’s got PG-13 morals in an R-rated comedy. And he breaks his course because he can’t make pit-stops, you know? But he thinks he’s still in the race. And he needs all these people, all these buddies of his, to run the long road with him. A road where they end up busting alien balls together instead.” 

In ‘Knocked Up,’ there’s a scene where Rogen, playing Ben – an epitome of wasted humanness – asks Alison (Katherine Heigl) who works for ‘E!’ if she’s interviewed Vince Vaughn. He then tells her how he thinks Vaughn would be amazing to hang out with, and how, unlike other celebrity fantasies, he actually thinks his company would be something Vaughn would enjoy. ‘the Watch’ sees Rogen write for that man, which could’ve been a dream come true. They’re different comedians with some striking similarities, I’ve observed. Vaughn strikes me as a person with a slightly more impressionable conscience than Rogen, but that’s about it. They’ve played to their strengths in picking Vaughn for a role. Rogen couldn’t have possibly let him down. 

Franklin (Jonah Hill) is Shia Labeouf’s Mutt Williams gone rogue. I’ve previously expressed how fatigued I am with Hill’s brand of comedy. To put it simply, it hasn’t changed a bit. Franklin does poor switchblade and is even worse as a shot. He’s in the Watch so that he could join the force that rejected him before – and unceremoniously at that. His timing is impeccable, but his jokes suck. ‘Cyrus,’ ‘the Sitter,’ ’21 Jump Street.’ I can count the number of times he’s played an individual who shuttles between a man and an adolescent so fast he doesn’t linger anywhere for long. In fact, I don’t think he’s played anything else. Back in ‘Superbad’ times, he worked as a Rogen duplicate, hired because he looked younger. As his own comic, he’s yet to prove his worth. 

British comedian Richard Ayoade as Jamarcus is endearing because he’s exotic. And also because it’s sad to see him swayed by these gentlemen. He shows surprise at being offered a beer-can. His eyes widen when he ends up at a local orgy. Of course, all these things have reasons stated in context. He’s as funny as the other men in the plot, but when it comes to chemistry, he sticks out like a middle finger. Rosemarie Dewitt as Mrs. Trautwig (Stiller is Evan Trautwig) is wonderful in bits and pieces as the woman who craves for attention from an absent husband, but she’s stunted to a cheerleader when the big boys take over. Her husband had formed the Neighbourhood Watch. Isn’t it sensible for her to head the women’s fitness centre? She looks like she could. Rogen and Goldberg aren’t as thoughtful. 

I’ll tell you what. In the first scene, a Hispanic security guard at Costco finds he’s become an American citizen. He downs a bottle of Vodka to celebrate and lights a doobie, as Kevin Smith would call it. You don’t know why he did that. He wouldn’t know why he did that; neither would Rogen. He had written and performed in ‘Pineapple Express.’ It’s the sort of movie where you don’t know which one is stoned – the actor, the character, or both. If this is him steering away from stereotype, I’d caution him not to. The guard rolls outrage into a joint and lights up. He then gets skinned by an alien. The film goes downhill from there – a trend that’s evident in the career graphs of Rogen and Goldberg, following the success of ‘Superbad’ and ‘Pineapple Express.’ They’re quite the brand. But they push their saleability. Kind of like a Magnum for a peanut-sized member. Pointless.

TAKES ITS OWN SWEET TIME

DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS STOLLER 

STARRING: JASON SEGEL, EMILY BLUNT, RHYS IFANS, CHRIS PRATT, ALISON BRIE, DAVID PAYMER, MIMI KENNEDY, KEVIN HART with DAKOTA JOHNSON and CHRIS PARNELL 

Tom Solomon and Violet Barnes have a five-year long engagement before they break it off and go their separate ways. Their next one lasts for about an hour – five minutes on film. Too long, you say, are the five years they spend together. So long you actually feel the boredom; share the frustration. The next one blows past like a breeze, and you’re scrolling down title credits before you know you are. 

The success of Nicholas Stoller’s ‘the Five-Year Engagement’ (and yes, it is successful as a movie-watching experience) lies in the fact that it shows the long and winding road. What limits its success is, perhaps, the fact that it shows too much of it. I watched the film in two separate sittings. One was before a late morning class. The other was today, a day after Christmas eve. The way it looks, it must have been strategic. Time-out from everyday life, I figured, could’ve made me as intolerant of the film as Tom and Violet were, at one point, of each other. Christmas break gave the right setting to set things right. And it added to the cheer to watch the film do the very same. 

Tom is played by Jason Segel, a role that can very well have been written with him in mind. He’s a chef from San Francisco who can’t understand why there are other places in the world to go to with good old California back home. Violet, who’s played by Emily Blunt, is British and exists to take him away from there – as a person and as a contributor to the plotline. We ask ourselves why she must be British. We answer saying she needn’t. It’s not to Britain that she drags Tom to – it’s just Michigan, after all. 

Violet had earned herself a post-doc in Psychology at the University of Michigan, under the guidance of Dr. Winton Jones (Rhys Ifans), an old Rooster who keeps at it with the crows because he’s still got game. He’s as comparable as he can be distinguished from the character played by Greg Kinnear in Amy Heckerling’s ‘Loser.’ He does nothing to earn your disrespect, and it’s a tad disappointing to see the film do nothing to vindicate him. Like the French cook in ‘Addicted to Love,’ for instance, who deserved his fate probably only because he was crystal-clear in a murky overall. 

‘the Five-Year Engagement’ has its own share of dispensable characters as well – characters who can’t be this dispensable, if you think about it. Dr. Jones is just one of them. On Tom’s side, we have Audrey (Dakota Johnson), a “23-year old airhead, who probably doesn’t know who the fucking Beatles are.” Tom tells her he needs to go back and explore what he had with Violet when he has ‘the Talk’ with her. Audrey goes “Well, she’s an old bitch. There, I’ve explored her for you!” 

I could see writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber smirking at that statement. We all know Audrey is makeshift for Tom. So is the professor, for Violet. That’s how Stoller designed it to be. Neustadter and Weber made no distinction between Summer and Autumn in ‘(500) Days of Summer,’ in spite of the fact that Summer came with a whole movie-load of the good stuff. Autumn would be the next movie, they’d say.

Stoller can be criticized on that count, but lauded on many – including the very same. Tom and Violet have something they haven’t got with any of those other people they’d go on to meet. They have five years of time invested. Five years that would turn six and not four. Violet, we hear, has been in a four-year relationship before. Gideon walks up to her at her Grandmother’s funeral and shows her “what four years look like.” The film is rich with such illustrative moments. To impact you, they require your support. And they earn that support with a draught of promise that asks you to not give up on these people. You find you won’t. 

In its own line of defence, ‘the Five-Year Engagement’ is a ready bite taken into the stale doughnut of life that goes nowhere. You don’t have to find the right place to pull over and park. You don’t need the right van to get your wheels in motion. An old ambulance not beyond repair, you’ll find, would do just fine.

TRUTH BEING TOLD, NOT WORTH IT

DIRECTED BY ANG LEE 

STARRING: SURAJ SHARMA, IRRFAN KHAN, ADIL HUSSAIN, TABU, RAFE SPALL, SHRAVANTHI SAINATH and GERARD DEPARDIEU 

Let me tell you a story. There’s this family of four that relocates to Canada from India, selling their zoo off and taking along a couple of dozen species on a cargo ship as a livelihood option. The Father, the Mother, the Elder brother and Pi. The cook on board is French and compulsively mean, and there’s a Buddhist who offers rice with plain gravy – meat is murder, the family maintains; the cook would kill for food that he serves on the ship. It is a cycle, we presume, only one turn of which we get to see. 

The family goes to sleep. Pi doesn’t. Not only are thunderstorms sources of entertainment, they also save lives. Pi becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck, illustrated in what could be the most glorious shot since that of the Titanic sinking. 3D brings the dark out in the spectacle – we see only 50 percent of what Pi would’ve seen. Ang Lee shows us that the beauty of disaster lies not in scale-up but a close-in: You feel what you experience, you experience what you’re put in a boat with. A cook, a staunch Buddhist and your Mother. 

Besides the fact that Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) has too much water in his life than his lungs can hold, besides the fact that he, when 12 years old, throws his ‘soul’ around like the goats offered to his highness, Mr. Parker; besides the fact that there are so many little details we brush aside to get to the ideological depth of the movie – like how Pi is clean-shaven, Italian mafia-styled, after months at sea with his follicles active everywhere else; like how the faux-Tamil accent, the most ridiculous thing in the world, is used to establish overdone stereotypes – the Father, the Mother, the Older brother, the Dancer girl whom Pi likes and who likes him back... 

Besides all these things mentioned above, ‘Life of Pi’ is the story of a human coming face to face with the spectacle - Pi, before the world, and you, the viewer, before the film. Now, let me give you more of the story before I proceed to comment.

The Buddhist breaks his leg and badly with his jump onto the boat. Its decay is disintegration of whatever humanness might’ve existed otherwise. And it brings the Cook out – the pointless racist, a man who is considered pure evil. Brotherhood is as Brotherhood does, and the Buddhist becomes a three-course meal that Pi and his Mother take no part in as, obviously, they are vegetarians. It’s only about time that the Cook turns to the other two on board, both willing to throw their lives down for the other. 

Anyway, if the Harry Potter books have taught us anything, it’s that a Boy needs to suffer the guilt of having survived to become a Man who doesn’t care for survival – it’s the dawn of morality. The Mother goes down fighting, the Man is unleashed at that. “I did to the Cook what he did to the Buddhist guy,” Pi recounts to the people from the company who, after 227 days of life at sea, aren’t willing to buy this plausible an explanation. “It’s too simple,” they say. “We want an experience, not an excuse. A spectacle, not a solution. We want bizarre – not boring.” I’m paraphrasing, of course. They call it the ‘truth.’ They seek it. 

So he tells them another story, like Poirot does in ‘Murder on the Orient Express.’ The Cook becomes a Hyena, the Mother becomes an Orangutan; the Buddhist becomes a wounded Zebra, and Pi becomes Richard Parker, the Tiger, whom he watches from the side and encounters as both adversary and thickest friend. This time, there are whales, flying fish; a carnivorous island populated with nothing but meerkats. The people from the Company buy it – if Romanticism was truth, they’ve had their share. They leave happy with Pi distraught at having watched the Tiger, a reflection of his own self, disappear into the wilderness without a growl to say goodbye. 

Pi narrates this story as an adult to a writer, a version of Yann Martel, the author of the Booker-winning novel. He is played by Irrfan Khan, an exciting actor (except that his accent butchers language) who paints both sides with performance you can buy. The question, as it seems, is what you choose to believe. Like on the Orient Express, one story has the power of sequences to back. The other is a monologue with the camera closing in, where, in delirium brought out by grief, we see genuineness. On the Orient Express, they choose to ‘decide.’ Is it a decision? If it is, then the film has achieved what it aspired for – to be as ruthless as the Cook in a man-eat-man world. Life has been thrust upon us, it says. So are you, I’d say in return. 

Pi asks the writer what he chooses to believe. I do not think his answer would be the same as that he used in ‘Life of Pi.’ It is not merely a flip of sequence and monologue – it is a decision. Romanticism against bitter truth, which, nonetheless, is also Romantic. The road never forks. ‘Mulholland Drive’ is ambiguous – ‘Life of Pi’ isn’t. The stories cannot be inter-changed unless you have decided to, and your decisions shall suffice. The stories are redundant. ‘Life of Pi’ wastes your time. It is not argumentative. It double-sells a stance that it has already taken.

After having taken the pains to open the oyster, you don’t find the pearl where you’re told its absence is wisdom. Much like this review of mine – after almost a thousand words, I have given you nothing. Except for the fact that I shall take a stance but also tell you about it. It doesn’t make my argument stronger, but I believe it’d make the experience comforting. 

Like the 3D in this film. ‘Life of Pi’ is probably the best of its kind; an incredible human adventure as a Boy who, I think, represents you and does well at that. It is sincere with its rendition of an irksome narrative that wins your attention but doesn't deserve it. It’s a choice made in full awareness of an existing argument happening elsewhere, in a different story. And after two hours invested, you’re a survivor yourself and I’d think you deserve that story. Not this one.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

WRITTEN BY THOMAS BLOM HANSEN

Jason Bourne is a well-trained CIA assassin who, as goes the plot of the series, tries to find out who he really is. What is he looking for, really? In ‘Bourne Identity,’ we find he has a dozen passports under a dozen aliases and a whole world insistent on taking him down for reasons he isn’t aware of. As he looks into why this is happening to him, he goes on a deeper, much more profound quest – for identity. Identity, here, is a question of legality and closure, where Bourne would like to see himself as a citizen again with a single legitimate passport and pertaining documents, a place of residence, perhaps, and people once close to him, whom he would rediscover in the process. 

The journey with Bourne is organic. There is a human being fleshed out even in the ruthless assassin he is, a character that we find we can empathize with and root for. And three films down the line, by which time we get familiar with and fond of Jason Bourne, we, along with the man himself, discover that he actually isn’t Jason Bourne. He is, in fact, called David Webb, an army man adopted by the CIA for an operation and ‘converted’ to Jason Bourne in a training module, where Bourne is a character, an identity that is created and ascribed to the man that Webb had become. 

Now, there are two points where his identity becomes problematic as I see it. The first is when David Webb becomes Jason Bourne, a process illustrated as a classic example of CIA brainwashing. The second is Jason Bourne coming to terms with the fact that inside the Bourne machine is a man who once lived – someone, he learns, is called David Webb, who was ‘transformed’ to Jason Bourne through an excruciating set of initiation rituals. 

Aside from, or perhaps even including, the set of characteristics he had been force-fed with, Jason Bourne is still who he is. Or isn’t he? So he is, in our heads, where we had gotten more than accustomed, through piggy-back rides on his shoulders in chase sequences where we bonded on adrenalin rush. To us, he is Jason Bourne; we shall not be swayed that easy. To himself, however, we can’t say. 

Thomas Blom Hansen, in ‘Violence in Urban India: Identity Politics, ‘Mumbai’ and the Postcolonial city’ writes that the ‘proper name’ is something that, when replaced by a set of characteristics to describe the thing in question, just doesn’t work the same way. The term “a grumpy, cynical, almost worn-out archaeologist with an eye out for adventure and a knack of handling it,” doesn’t do as much justice as calling him ‘Indiana Jones,’ or ‘Indy’ for that matter. But it could very well be because we had been conditioned this way, to an extent that we find comfort in representing him through his name and an uneasiness otherwise. 

I’m aware that my examples have been individuals (and fictional characters, that too!) so far, and I understand that a city can, in no way, have an individual for a metaphor on the lines of the ancient Greek theory of society as an organism. But then I believe the problem has been put on the table, alongside Blom Hansen’s theory on the proper name. For an entity as vast and of indescribable diversity as a city, a proper name or, more simply, the ‘right name’ is practically impossible. You get used to a name through its constant reiteration, most of which has got to be authoritative, as Blom Hansen claims. 

The name, in case of representative naming, is both cause and consequence of what it signifies. In case of a city, as much as the name, if it has to be ‘proper,’ needs to represent the space, historical context and, if possible, the collective(?) identity of all its people, it also would go on to define the same for its people. ‘Mumbai,’ for instance, is not just (‘not even,’ as Blom Hansen would say) a consequence of the ‘Maratha pride,’ but also serves as a cause for the same. As he rightly quotes Zizek here, “the identity of an object is the retroactive effect of naming itself – it is the name itself, the signifier, which supports the identity of an object.” Jason Bourne is aware that he is Jason Bourne, where ‘David Webb’ comes in to confuse. As is, unless I’m terribly mistaken, the case with Bombay and Mumbai. 

The fundamental argument of the book, which Blom Hansen spoon-feeds to us, is made clear in the first few lines in a sub-heading called ‘the Argument’ that he writes in the introductory chapter. Let me quote him word-by-word so as to not deprive you of the full blow of his statement that, I believe, I would take away in an effort to paraphrase. 

This book analyzes the historical formation of the political discourses, the identities and the conflicts that changed Bombay from being the preeminent symbol of India’s secular, industrial modernity, to become a powerful symbol of the very crisis of this symbol.

I think he does a world of good in putting across the core idea of his book in four (three, here) lines that give the reader the requisite amount of clarity in proceeding further with it. And he does himself a disservice in that he isn’t being elusive about it. 

As the statement puts across, we find ourselves up against two facets of Blom Hansen. One is the historiographer/storyteller who, like an old mariner, mixes stories of the state and the city with stories on how he collected those, meshing them into a compelling narrative as perceived and told through the perspective of one who was as beguiled as he was startled by what he saw, read and heard about. 

On the other, we have the critic, who could weigh the information he gathered and who doesn’t hesitate to take a stance, as he unabashedly says so himself. In his persuasion to see things the way he’d like to see them (which he has averted to a substantial degree, the fair amount of neutrality that, I think, he has achieved), the critic might have hit a few blind spots, but the historiographer never loses track. There’s a story in hand, it’s compelling, and he’s delightful in his rendition of it. 

All through my reading of the book – and I shall, first and foremost, admit to an equal ignorance of both scenarios – I couldn’t help but try to put Mumbai and Chennai in a tabular column. Both were ‘Presidencies’ during British rule. Post-Colonialism, thus, applies to both, as does the conflict on the ‘proper name.’ Again, I shall restate my ignorance in the lack of an argument to support the existence of such a conflict, but I am, mildly, aware of an amount of nostalgia in the former that has people only grudgingly accept or merely become accustomed to the latter. For instance, I come from an institute that still continues to call itself ‘IIT Madras.’ So does ‘IIT Bombay,’ for that matter, actually. The reason here, however, is a certain pride that the institution insists upon keeping close to. And the ‘brand.’ 

Another similarity I find is in the concept of a Tamil nation (a concept I wouldn’t entirely dismiss either), not far from the situation in Maharashtra, with the identity of the ‘Maratha’ and the heroic notion of Shivaji that has been naturalized through the ages. Tamil, the language, has been the rallying point for political parties as the DMK and more aggressive fronts like the MDMK and the PMK, and even though I wouldn’t peg them alongside an entity as severe as the Shiv Sena, there’s still a certain level of manipulation and opportunism that’s definitely comparable. The cause is indefinite as Blom Hansen’s idea of identity based on language; and trust is a first-class ticket for a plane that won’t take off. 

It’s like the man who feigns drought in Summer in a village so he could make a Rain-God and become priest in a quest for control. If anything, the policy has been Machiavellian; the idea of a ‘Maratha’ is loose, and harmful in that it is exclusive of a whole bunch of people, which becomes problematic in a cosmopolitan environment and, more importantly, in the making and existence of a city of multiple identities that can’t be put in a single bracket. A Tamil nation, in this way, implies the same, where settlements of any other linguistic group will have to be excluded and/or marginalized. Of course, the whole idea is combative against existing or imagined discrimination, but the solution is not as simple as a ‘Do not enter’ sign – which, in the case of exclusionary policies, is implied and not even explicitly stated. 

It’s here, perhaps, that I was most disappointed in Blom Hansen. A collective identity of a city on the whole might be practically impossible. But is it not necessary? Like I said, ‘Indiana Jones’ is not “the rogue archaeologist who wears a hat and cracks a whip” – he is ‘Indiana Jones.’ What can ‘Mumbai’ be, then? ‘Bombay’ was, in no way, better, as has strongly been stated. Under the veil of elitism, modernity and aspirations were intense social, cultural and political anxieties that burst out with the press of a trigger. And ‘Mumbai’ did nothing to make it better, if not intensify it further. 

I agree that Blom Hansen has done well in presenting us with the problem – understanding is the first step towards change. But has that step taken us any closer? 

‘Violence in Urban India: Identity Politics, ‘Mumbai’ and the Postcolonial city,’ deconstructs the name to be an inadequate signifier, at least in the case of calling Mumbai ‘Mumbai.’ Perhaps we have reached the state where we number cities and not name them, with an excuse of ‘starting from scratch’ to tackle the problem of space, historical context and collective identity. But then again, there’d be a section of society that comes up and says that the digits don’t add up the way they ought to. And another that gives a new number that represents them better. The argument is endless, my review is not. I stop right here.