REVIEW 777: ANGREZI MEDIUM

Release date:	March 13, 2020
Director:	Homi Adajania
Cast:	Irrfan, Radhika Madan, Deepak Dobriyal, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranvir Shorey, Dimple Kapadia, Pankaj Tripathi, Kiku Sharda, Tillotama Shome, Zakir Hussain, Meghna Malik
Language:	Hindi

Angrezi Medium’s opening does not bode well for what is to come. Text on a black screen at the start offers an amusing definition of the Hindi word “pita” and while translating that definition into English, mistranslates “pita” as “parent”. Ummm, “pita” is “father”. 

This is a curious slip-up because despite the post-1960s Bollywood tradition of marginalising women, mothers have been deified to kingdom come by this film industry. And if a deeper meaning is sought to be conveyed here, about the protagonist (a man we have yet to meet) doubling up as Mum and Dad to his child, sorry, it does not come across. This throws up a troubling question right at the start of Angrezi Medium: would the film proceed to take the marginalisation of women to new lows? Despite its opening misfire, the answer is: actually not. 

Director Homi Adajania’s Angrezi Medium stars Irrfan as Champak Bansal, a widower in Udaipur who will go to any lengths to ensure his daughter Tarika Bansal’s happiness. Tarika has always, always dreamt of seeing the world, and when an opportunity to travel to London comes up in her late teens, she eyes it eagerly. Champak must overcome his fear of losing her, financial challenges and his penchant for being indiscreet to help her get there. 

Through a series of misadventures, Tarika does end up in London, so do Champak and his cousin Gopi. As you would have gathered from the trailer, the men are pretending to be someone they are not, leading to a further series of misadventures, mishaps and misunderstandings. 

There is great drama in the plotline, but it is not over-dramatised in its presentation. The result is an even-toned narrative and a consistently funny, consistently reflective story on the balance that must be struck between holding on yet letting go in any loving relationship that does not suffocate either party. 

Angrezi Medium is Adajania’s fourth feature. His debut, Being Cyrus, was an edgy thriller. Cocktail was a step down with its revival of outmoded gender and sectarian stereotypes. Angrezi Medium is debatable but interesting.

This new film is a follow-up but not a sequel to the 2017 hit Hindi Medium in which Irrfan and Pakistani star Saba Qamar played a Delhi couple desperate to get their daughter out of the old-fashioned, traditionalist milieu of Chandni Chowk and into an English medium school in the capital’s snootier quarters. 

Like Raj from Hindi Medium, Champak too can barely speak English, a language that continues to have aspirational value across India. This, however, is an extraneous point in Angrezi Medium. Champak is not quite as wealthy as the BMW-driving Raj, but he is financially well off. Money too is not the driving force of this plot. The focus of Angrezi Medium is Champak’s single-minded commitment to Tarika that leads him to introspect about his conservatism while she reconsiders her somewhat conventional interpretation of taking flight. 

Written by Bhavesh Mandalia, Gaurav Shukla, Vinay Chhawal and Sara Bodinar, Angrezi Medium’s first victory comes with its use of language. The film’s characters speak a Rajasthani Hindi that is a pleasure to listen to, its rhythm rib-tickling to those of us unaccustomed to it. At no point is it used to caricature the characters speaking it though. I did at first wish for subtitles, but after the first half hour it grew on me.

The writing team has managed to broach multiple themes without making the screenplay feel crowded. At a time when Islamophobia is tearing through our social fabric, Angrezi Medium takes a passing comical swipe at those who stereotype Muslims with specific superficial markers. In a film industry and a society that have consistently prioritised the aspirations of male children, it is also refreshing to see a story of a father’s reactions to an independent-minded daughter’s dreams without any self-conscious tomtomming of their gender by the filmmaker. 

Hindi films were once obsessed with the mother-son bond. Angrezi Medium deals with a range of parent-child equations from the pivotal father-daughter pair to a significant mother-daughter and a father-son on the sidelines. Even in its unspoken Indian-vs-Western-culture viewpoint, the film is atypical. 

Where it does stumble into conformist territory is in brief conversations where Champak speaks of the selfishness of children who leave their parents on reaching adulthood and accuses such youngsters of using their parents for 18 years before dumping them. Of course there are kids who head out without sparing a thought for parents who were good to them, kids who toss such parents out of their lives without any consideration for their needs or feelings, and of course such kids are jerks, but Angrezi Medium fails to acknowledge that in the place where the film is set at that point, it is just as common for parents to chuck their kids out when they turn 18. And in India, where such a practice is alien, parents go to another extreme and interfere in their children’s existence as a matter of right. And what of parents across the world who are rotters? If you do not have the space to at least touch upon all these points, it is terribly unfair to dwell on just one, especially considering that Indian films tend to pedestalise parents or at the very least view them with an uncritical eye.

These passages in Angrezi Medium are aberrations in a film that is largely non-judgemental in its approach to its characters. Thankfully, the screenplay does not stretch the point too far and sort of sorts it out in the end. 

Angrezi Medium’s other frailties are not connected to the values it sets out to propagate. A prologue about how Champak has been confused since childhood feels contrived, even if a link is clearly intended between that juvenile indecisiveness and his adult confusion in a changing world. This plot element is marginal to the proceedings though. 

Far more problematic is the way the narrative intermittently flags in the second half when it spends too much time on the often improbable, even impossible means Champak employs to get Tarika admission to the college of her choice. Irrfan and Dobriyal are lovely together, but the film loses steam in these portions by straying too far from the Dad and daughter and becoming too much about the cousins. On the whole too, as a result, Angrezi Medium unwittingly becomes more about a devoted father than it is about a father and daughter, it becomes more about Champak than it is about Champak and Tarika. 

This is an injustice to Tarika who is purportedly the second lead. Post-interval Angrezi Medium is less invested in her than it was pre-interval, a writing choice that subtracts from its overall impact. The screenplay redeems itself by getting right back to her in the end. 

(Aside: This, I suspect, was a Freudian slip. We are so used to placing men, their work and their needs at the centre of our stories – read: our personal lives, our art, our news coverage – that the best of us often do not realise how we have internalised our social conditioning. It shows up in many ways big and tiny, including how a screenplay writer might unconsciously prioritise a male character over a woman, or translate the common-gender “parent” as the masculine gender “pita”, or – if the headline of this review gave you pause, then please note – how socially we casually use masculine expressions such as “thinking man’s film”, “mankind”, “manpower” and “man hours” for gender-neutral circumstances but are startled or offended when anyone similarly uses the feminine gender.)

Radhika Madan as Tarika is a perfect fit for a role that requires her to match up to the formidable Irrfan. In her debut Hindi feature, Vishal Bhardwaj’s wacko Pataakha, she had proved her ability to carry a film on her shoulders as one of two female leads. In Angrezi Medium she stands her ground in an ensemble film, acing the comedy, the fieriness of her character, her pensive moments and her maturing with equal confidence. 

I am not sure why Kareena Kapoor Khan agreed to play a supporting character in Angrezi Medium, since male superstars almost never make such choices in Bollywood. That she agreed is the film’s good fortune because she is a stately presence in a small but important role. 

Deepak Dobriyal blazes his way through Angrezi Medium with the smashing comic timing that made him stand out in Tanu Weds Manu and Hindi Medium. Give him more, Bollywood. C’mooon, give him more. 

Time, trouble and money have evidently been spent on casting even characters who get just a few seconds to minutes of screen time in Angrezi Medium. Unlike most Hindi films that cut corners by recruiting cringe-worthy individuals to play foreigners, this one has good actors in those parts too, which is crucial since most of the film is set abroad. 

Irrfan is returning to acting after a long break due to a health scare. He seems to have grown as an artiste in this time away from the public eye. He is so consumed by his character that the strain of doing an accent never once shows, nor does he, unlike many lesser actors in other films, allow that accent to overpower his sensitive performance. After The Lunchbox, Champak in Angrezi Medium must rank as among his best work. A fine performance for a fun film.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2.75

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	145 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/angrezi-medium-movie-review-irrfan-kareena-and-a-great-ensemble-breeze-through-a-thinking-womans-comedy-8144901.html

Posters courtesy:

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angrezi_Medium

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_Medium

REVIEW 621: KARWAAN

Release date:	August 3, 2018
Director:	Akarsh Khurana
Cast: Language:	Irrfan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar, Amala Akkineni, Kriti Kharbanda Hindi with English

As mix-ups go, this one is weird. A man loses his father in an accident but the body delivered to him is of the mother of a woman in another state. Avinash Rajpurohit was not fond of his Dad, but duty calls and he agrees to meet the lady to exchange coffins somewhere between Bengaluru where he lives and her home in Kochi. A few hundred kilometres separate the two cities but Avinash travels a lifetime on that journey he makes with his friend Shaukat and a young woman called Tanya who joins them along the way.

Writer-director Akarsh Khurana’s Karwaan is a quiet film. Apart from the tragedy that kicks off the narrative, nothing much seems to happen here yet a lot does. It is a story of rumination and awakenings, and as in life, here too, such things rarely happen with drum rolls and bugle calls.

Karwaan has made news for two reasons so far: because it has been released even as Bollywood actor Irrfan battles a debilitating illness and because it is the first Bollywood film featuring Mollywood heartthrob Dulquer Salmaan, DQ to his fans. The news now is this: Irrfan and DQ live up to their formidable reputations here, and are both absolute dears in this sweetly understated road flick.

Irrfan’s Shaukat is a garrulous fellow, exceedingly old fashioned in many respects and for the most part, immensely funny. “For the most part” because I felt uncomfortable with the humourisation of his racist attitude towards a white couple he encounters. I know I know, some of you will say white people do not need the protection of an Indian film critic, but excuse me for pointing out that othering is not okay even when directed at powerful communities, though of course I am not equating it with racism towards the marginalised. As for that cliched old defence, “this is just a portrayal of reality”, the answer is: of course conservatives do exist in the real world, but this is the only point in Karwaan where the storyteller’s own tone condones the character’s obnoxious behaviour. This is particularly jarring because in another area of his life, Shaukat proves to be a remarkably progressive fellow and challenger of an appalling status quo.

That discomfiting scene apart, Shaukat is amusing throughout. And Irrfan’s dialogue delivery is a killer as always. His is the more striking character of the two leads, but DQ rises to the challenge of playing the less obviously likeable Avinash, a role that on the surface also appears less challenging.

The promotions of Karwaan have hopefully given Bollywood viewers an idea of exactly how big a deal this young man is in Mollywood. His matinee idol looks, excellent acting and discerning choices have catapulted him to the top of his profession in just six years. Add to this blend his fluid personality, and you get the perfect package for superstardom across industries. His career path indicates that he may well get there considering that at 32 he is already a dominant force in Mollywood, has made his mark with a handful of films in Kollywood, and this year has forayed into both Tollywood and Bollywood.

DQ brings to Karwaan the attributes that have made him such a perfect fit in Mollywood, a film industry that pushes the envelope far more than India’s Big Three, Kollywood, Tollywood and Bollywood. He is handsome but not self-conscious, and in Karwaan as in all his works, he conveys the impression of being unaware of his hotness, which is such an attractive quality in a star, such an essential quality in a true actor and so crucial to his unobtrusively gripping performance as the self-effacing Avinash, forever held back by his internal turmoil and bitterness. Besides, his commitment to his work is evident in his Hindi accent, which is unbelievably good for a man who has never lived in the Hindi belt.

While the two male leads are more prominent in the story, Mithila Palkar holds her own in the presence of these established actors, playing the feisty teenaged Tanya. Kriti Kharbanda is luminous in a small role. Why do we not see her more often in Bollywood? And Amala Akkineni brings dignity and warmth to her cameo in a way only a beloved veteran can.

That said, the initial part of the writing of her character is one of Karwaan’s flaws. She sounds laboured while conveying grief in telephone conversations with Avinash, and the manner in which she entrusts her child to a complete stranger is bizarre, to say the least.

So yes, Karwaan is far from perfect. The first half feels insubstantial. Considering that this is a road film, I sorely missed glimpses of the cultures of the places the lead trio pass through. A Hindi film in this setting requires a suspension of disbelief anyway because Hindi is not the lingua franca of southern India, but the stray Malayalam dialogues and lyrics in Karwaan give it a natural feel. Dialogue writer Hussain Dalal also makes the wise choice of mixing Hindi and English in equal parts in Avinash’s lines, which gives them an easy flow. That said, it bothered me that the storyteller is so accepting of Tanya’s dismissive attitude towards the language of her home city – I get that north Indian supremacism has led to a situation where Hindi bhaashis travelling to other parts of India tend not to make an effort to learn the local languages, and in that sense Tanya’s arrogance is realistic, but the implied okaying of her arrogance by the film is troubling.

(Possible spoiler ahead) Karwaan is also casual about facts in its reference to the Islamic practice known in common parlance as instant triple talaq, which was banned by the Supreme Court last year. The discussions around this development have all related to men divorcing their wives by uttering the words “talaq talaq talaq” but there is little awareness about women’s right to do likewise. This fleeting portion of Karwaan is clearly meant to be uplifting to liberal women viewers, but good intentions notwithstanding, because the issue is complex the scene is bound to create confusion or generate misinformation. It could easily have been snipped out without disrupting the narrative, yet was not, which suggests a deliberate prioritisation of populism over other concerns. (Spoiler alert ends)

In another fleeting reference, Karwaan would have done well not to suggest an equivalence between a man making a move to hit a woman and that woman’s intrusive impertinence towards him. The film could have also done with better editing to tighten a fight scene involving a bunch of bit part actors.

I wish these issues had been ironed out, because Karwaan overall is a heartwarming little film. For one, it is unusual in the way it does not deify parents but reminds us that like all human beings, they too come in a range of good, bad and ugly. “Logon ko haq jamaana aata hai, rishtaa nibhaana nahin (People know how to exercise their rights, not abide by relationships),” says a character when discussing parents who are jerks.

The film offers a nuance not often seen in Hindi cinema or Indian cinema at large, when it speaks of a generation gap between youngsters separated in age by perhaps a decade. It also does not see a romance as essential in every relationship between two attractive people of the opposite sex, though it acknowledges that such sparks are a possibility. And it takes a brave stand on domestic violence.

Karwaan’s effectiveness lies in the fact that it rises above its pre-interval indolence. Critics often speak of “the curse of the second half” afflicting so many films that start off well and then peter out. Karwaan is the opposite. It revs up post-interval, not merely in terms of actual physical events and encounters, but in the character graphs. What remains consistent from start to finish is cinematographer Avinash Arun’s inventive, expansive frames. My favourite of them all involves a low angle shot of DQ reading a paper framed against a backdrop of thick green trees.

As someone who has followed Dulquer Salmaan’s career from the beginning, I confess I was apprehensive when I realised that the Akarsh Khurana directing his first Hindi film is the same gentleman who helmed a fizzled-out firecracker called High Jack starring Sumeet Vyas earlier this year. Khurana is the only one who can tell us what went wrong with that film, because my fears were misplaced and he is in fine fettle in Karwaan.

As for DQ, his talent was evident from his Mollywood debut in 2012 but his more recent works like Kali, Kammatipaadam and Solo – an anthology in which he played four roles in four separate stories – have elevated him to a higher plane by offering gigantic proof of his versatility. Kammatipaadam also indicated his willingness to risk films with sensitive themes and an off-mainstream tone and, more important, his readiness to submit to a director who did not allow his stardom to overshadow the project although his presence could be counted on to raise its profile. Karwaan is not a bone-crushing beauty of the sort that Kammatipaadam was, but here too we have a director and star collaborating to give a script priority over all else.

As a Mollywood buff I obviously hope that DQ remains rooted – allow me to play on the title of one of his Malayalam films – in the neelakasham, pachchakadal and chuvanna bhoomi (the blue sky, green sea and red earth) of his home ground. As a Bollywood buff though, I am thrilled to welcome him to a new fold in the company of the delightful Irrfan and the charming Ms Palkar.

“Ae mohtarma yu na sharma / main aashiq hoon koi creep nahin / ae husn pari, you don’t worry / meri shayaribhi zyaada deep nahin (Hey lady, I am a suitor, not a creep / Hey beautiful, don’t you worry, my poetry is not very deep),” goes a song in Karwaan sung by Papon, with music by Anurag Saikia and lyrics by Khurana. The words mirror the simplicity Karwaan aspires to, though it must be said that the film’s unassuming demeanour camouflages considerable depth.

At one point, a character in this film explains that he is not sure whether Person X was a good guy but it is clear that he was not bad, which in itself is quite something in this day and age. There can be no more appropriate a description of Karwaan: it is not earth shattering, but it is not bad at all. Which is another way of saying it is an intelligent, funny, thoughtful film and a pleasant experience.

Rating (out of five stars): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	2 hours

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/karwaan-movie-review-dulquer-salmaan-and-irrfan-are-absolute-dears-in-a-sweetly-understated-road-flick-4884551.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/KarwaanMovie/