Joyland is meditation in cinema and one that will move you to the core.

Joyland is meditation in cinema and one that will move you to the core.

Star Cast: Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq, Alina Khan, Sarwat Gilani, Salman Peerzada, Sohail Sameer, Sania Saeed, and ensemble.

Director: Saim Sadiq

What’s Good: Saim Sadiq talks of love, falling out of it, s*xual desires, and patriarchy that pushes people to the wall with a tale that shatters us to the core.

What’s Bad: If the world chooses to not watch it.

Loo Break: you aren’t allowed to at all.

Watch or Not?: WATCH, WATCH, WATCH! It is not every day a debutant filmmaker makes a movie so good that the final frame leaves you shattered.

Language: Punjabi & Urdu (with subtitles).

Available On: To Release In India Soon.

Runtime: 126 Minutes

A supremely patriarchal family is waiting for one of its two sons to produce an heir to their falling kingdom. The youngest son who is an antithesis to their ideology goes and finds a job in an erotic dance theatre and falls in love with the trans starlet there. What it does to his marriage and family is Joyland.

Joyland Movie Review: Star Performance

The cast of Joyland is so synced and connected that they all play with each other’s energy. There is a rhythm in how they all perform and make way for the next actor to elevate the scene even more. Two confrontations inside the house and the second one is so organic. The camera doesn’t even focus on the three characters in the frame, but God the way the three pull off that scene is crazy!

Ali Junejo plays Haider by using his entire presence. Here is a man burdened by the gaze of his family who looks at him as a less manly and of no use individual and that burden is visible in his body language. Add to it the fact that he is married and falls in love with a Trans woman. The way he approaches Haider is so heart-breaking because while he understands what he is doing wrong, but is also reckless and not shy of crying his heart out. There is so much melancholy and oppressed anger in just his eyes.

Rasti Farooq manages to be us in the setup. The patriarchal household waiting for a boy child isn’t just limited to Pakistan but is also reminiscent of India. Rasti as Mumtaz, Haider’s wife, manages to channel the anger anyone who is against the setup will have. It is her who has to pay the biggest price of the situation but also silently. Even her rebellion is silenced because she is a woman. While she fights loneliness, the pressure of falling out of love, suppressed s*xual desires because her husband no longer finds him attracted towards her, she is a bottle of an aerated fluid filled to its maximum on the verge of bursting. And when she bursts….

Alina Khan should be the face of victory for the coming months at least. What a natural actor. For the most part of it, she is enacting the sufferings that possibly her or the members of the community have already faced and even more brutal than that. The fact that she is not a cis-gendered actor playing a Trans woman but a trans person herself adds even more empathy. She demands respect, combats for it if need be, and climbs the ladder to be in a position to demand a clean hotel room is so empowering.

Sarwat Gilani is a star. An actor who has done some of the most unconventional roles in the Pakistani industry plays yet another complex but liberating parts. Nucchi is a strong woman who takes care of a family of nine while trying to give it an heir. She is fierce and knows to fight but has surrendered to patriarchy because she knows she alone cannot take it down. So it is either die of your desires or sacrifice them and exist. She chooses the latter. There is so much tenderness in the bond she shares with Mumtaz but not without some sparks. But there was room for some more of them together in the movie.

Joyland Movie Review: Direction, Music

Saim Sadiq is so confident for a filmmaker who is making his debut. There is so much empathy and melancholy in how he shapes Joyland. The fact that he knows what is needed to make a scene perfect and not add anything extra in his very first film fascinates the most. He explores the emotion of love with so non-judgemental gaze that gives you as a viewer a clear vision rather than the one that is at times contaminated by the director themselves by adding unnecessary commentary. He doesn’t believe in saying it all but lets the actions speak. Haider’s s*xuality is never discussed but hinted and you have to catch it.

Also, how beautifully he realises that not every rebellion walks towards a happy outcome. Especially in a setup like Joyland there cannot be a happy ending easily even if you root for it. Sadiq does what fits this narrative best because a cheery end might lead to making this an escapist cinema taking away the realism. Good job there!

The presence and absence of music are both apt at every corner of Joyland. The song Biba by Farasat Anees is a strong track and enters the narrative at a crucial point. What elevates the experience even more is the cinematography. DOP Joe Saade shoots this world in asymmetric frames that zoom into characters and scenes when needed the most. He manages to bring out the claustrophobic nature of this world quite well.

Joyland Movie Review: The Last Word

Joyland is meditation in cinema and one that will move you to the core. Saim Sadiq might have not made it to the Oscars final list but he is already a winner for making a film as brilliant as this. Thank you so much to the Kala Ghoda Festival authorities for screening this gem.

Lost movie review: The plot’s focus on Yami Gautam's Vidhi reduces the other characters into satellites who revolve around her. The only one who lifts off the screen is Pankaj Kapur, playing her twinkly-eyed, wise grandpa.

A young man who does ‘nukkad naatak’ on Kolkata’s teeming streets, goes missing one fine day. His sister and mother are bereft, because no one, least of all the police, seems interested in searching for him. A journalist with a fine nose for sniffing out trouble is on his trail, asking tough questions, making some powerful people uncomfortable: Aniruddha Roy’s Choudhary’s ‘Lost’ begins with a great deal of promise.

But as it goes along, it becomes more the story of Vidhi (Yami Gautam) an intrepid reporter, rebellious daughter, loving granddaughter, than about Ishan (Tushar Pandey), the theatre activist, in a rocky relationship with the ambitious Ankita (Pia Bajpiee), and his trajectory. The person who is ‘lost’, on whose story the film’s title is based, takes a back-seat, and it is the film that gets lost.

That shift detracts from the themes it is trying to underline, all important but forced to dovetail into each other — the underprivileged have no say, that caste and class determine fate, but that individuals can shift the needle. When a privileged young man states ‘what’s so surprising about a Dalit youth becoming a Maoist’, it’s not that the statement cannot be true, but it is not the only truth.

 

Pathaan story: Expanding Yrf’s spy universe (previously led by Salman Khan’s Tiger & Hrithik Roshan’s Kabir), the film is an origin story of an ex-army man turned undercover agent Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan) and his arch nemesis, Jim (John Abraham).

Pathaan review: An event film of sorts, since it marks Shah Rukh Khan’s return to the big screen after four long years, Pathaan is an ambitious action thriller that plays to the gallery and lives up to the hype. Far-fetched in writing but high on star power and style, Pathaan initially seems like a filmy Mountain Dew commercial which slowly but steadily finds its footing.

The plot follows India’s revocation of article 370 (special status of Jammu and Kashmir) and its impact on a Pakistani officer, who wants India to pay for this ‘mistake’. He reaches out to the formidable Jim, an Ex-RAW agent wronged by his own people. He is joined by his ravishing accomplice Rubai an ex-ISI agent (Deepika Padukone) with ambiguous motives. Pathaan, Jim and Rubai lock eyes and horns, as they hop continents and indulge in a dangerous game of betrayal and revenge. The three race to destroy and protect the worlds they believe in.

Director Siddharth Anand gives an over-the-top treatment to his spy thriller. He presents it more like a superhero film that needs massive suspension of disbelief. His fascination and fanboy worship of mainstream Hollywood blockbusters like Marvel films or Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible series to name a few, is evident here. Expect Falcon like wingsuit, exaggerated action & chase sequences, death and gravity-defying stunts on cars, bikes, ice and helicopters, immortal heroes and villains mouthing punchy dialogues, a femme fatale and all of this seeped in the idea of patriotism.

Action overrides emotions for major part of the film and that’s new territory for SRK, who is most loved in romantic or conversational roles. It’s interesting how he lets his body do the talking along with those powerfully evocative eyes at 57, as a full-fledged action hero. It is his presence that salvages an average script and subpar VFX. While the background score doesn’t quite feel in sync with the scenarios, the film’s music by Vishal & Shekhar manages to reflect the heroism and bravado on display.

Pathaan’s highlight is also John Abraham’s solid portrayal of Jim. Be it his Bane like masked entry or stunt sequences, John is menacing and makes a classic case of the villain overshadowing the hero in portions.

Deepika Padukone can kick ass and is perfectly cast as the dutiful, double crossing, morally ambiguous leggy agent but her chemistry with SRK feels underdeveloped. It lacks the spark that John-SRK’s characters share. Dimple Kapadia does a Tenet once again and lends that much-needed gravitas and emotional heft to the proceedings. You wish other characters exuded the sincerity of her part.

The YRF spy universe reunites Karan and Arjun (wink wink) to give you an iconic whistle moment as Bhai meets the badshah. If you are willing to overlook the frivolity in dialogues like ‘You are pretty screwed’, Pathaan has all the ingredients of a masala potboiler — slowmo entries, iconic battle of good versus bad and most importantly, a sexy-smouldering Shah Rukh Khan, who can fight the good fight on and off the screen. He’s still the undisputed King.