By Abishek Balaji
What really decides the fate of a movie? Despite the nature of the movie business being unpredictable, are the audience being fair?
I was witness to a very emotional moment while watching Ponniyin Selvan last week. Not the movie itself – even though I liked it, I didn’t find myself laughing or crying or anything (maybe it’s just my face that looks like a wax statue of Arjun Kapoor?). The man sitting next to me was a junior artist who was in a blink-and-you-miss role in the film, and he had brought his whole family to watch the movie, for the third time. He sat through the end credits searching for his name, and with great pride told me that he had given two takes for his scene with ‘Karthi Sir’
This incident got me thinking about how each film employs thousands of people, who unlike engineers or accountants, put their heart into it hoping the end outcome is loved. Had PS-1 been a flop, would this man have been this happy? Movies resonate with us in a way few things do – being an Imtiaz Ali fan, when I saw the masterpiece Jab Harry Met Sejal, a part of me changed. It was like a personal tragedy, and my expectations from life drastically reduced in general
I was looking forward to Laal Singh Chaddha ever since it was announced, but on looking at Aamir’s shockingly cartoonish acting in the trailer, I decided I was better off watching Forrest Gump at home for the 67th time till LSC comes to OTT. When most of the reviews were negative, I thought I’ll just settle for a 68th rewatch of Forrest. But last week when it came to Netflix, the Aamir Khan kanni in me wanted to give it a try at least for a few minutes
And the movie really worked for me. Yes, he acts like PK Aamir had a baby with Dhoom 3 Aamir. But there were so many scenes where I was smiling at how sweet it all was. When Laal’s mother stays back at school during his first day, I remembered that’s exactly what my mother did on my first day at school. When his mother offers to do dishes for the principal to get him admitted, I smiled at how a 2022 Indian movie can still now show what a 1990s Hollywood blockbuster did
The first and last 30 minutes were especially lovely – this is one of those few remakes that needs contextual adaptation at every turn, and I was surprised that the person behind this, Atul Kulkarni, was the same guy who shouts “onnakollaamavidamaatendaw” in random Tamil movies like Veeram and Run. This wasn’t like the Vikram Vedha remake where the only new takeaway for me was jollu-vittufying at Hrithik Roshan, this had some genuinely nice touches like the superstar cameo.
When the movie ended, I was more sad than happy because I knew it had turned out a huge bomb. I’m not sure how much the boycott campaigns affected it – I don’t think those many people are either buffoons or get influenced by buffoons. But it pained me to know that a movie I liked didn’t do well – it was Kaatru Veliyidai flashback all over again (yes, I am one of the two people who like it)
How much do reviews, boycotts, and tweets really affect a movie that involves the hard work of thousands of people? (I haven’t seen Chup – if there’s one thing that scares me more than ghosts its serial killers). Is this also a reason film makers will go more to OTT? How will Aamir Khan, who’s 57, bounce back from this? What is SRK thinking at this moment, with boycott campaigns already running against Pathaan? God save this country, whichever religion you choose to come from.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
October 10, 2022
Welcome to the RWI space, Abhishek Balaji. Nice write up.
I will preface my comment by saying I bought a morning show ticket for LSC that I knew I would not be able to attend because I was incensed to learn Sanghis had been wandering around with loudspeakers at multiplexes telling people not to watch the film. That is, to the extent there was a boycott of the film, I was not a part of it. Like you, it was the trailer that dissuaded me from watching.
And when it dropped in last week quite unheralded on Netflix, I watched too, with the memories of the trailer and the criticism of the film out of my mind.
I have written about my problems with the film in detail here:
Suffice it to say that the attempt to both Indianize the adaptation (Sikh instead of White American, Indian army v/s McNamara moron, train instead of bus stop etc) AND be way too faithful to the exact same beats as the original didn’t work for me and was ultimately its undoing. And to the extent that I could have suspended disbelief and invested emotionally instead to overlook plot fallacies, young Aamir only took me out of the film by being the only actor who acted out his role in a very physical and laborious way where everyone else (including bearded Aamir) was in character.
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Rocky
October 10, 2022
Nice piece. One of my office colleague long back had a tiny role in Risky Business , and that was his claim to fame. he would always bring that up to new employees.
Aside – I have not been able to muster the courage to watch LSC, Shamshera and Ek Villain even on the OTT.
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Madan
October 10, 2022
It can go the other way. I knew a sort of semi-professional/small time theatre actor and director (working in Tamil, RIP) who got the odd role as a Tamilian in Hindi movies. He got exactly one scene as a Tamil don in Milan Luthria’s OUATIM Dobara. We came to the theater to watch it and by chance, he was just coming out of a show. When we enthusiastically told him we were looking forward to seeing the movie, he had a sheepish smile (called ‘nammutu sirippu’). We soon found out why. When you find out your already tiny part got squeezed into a bad film…
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krishikari
October 10, 2022
being an Imtiaz Ali fan, when I saw the masterpiece Jab Harry Met Sejal, a part of me changed. It was like a personal tragedy, and my expectations from life drastically reduced in general
LOL, worst movie ever. I’m an Imtiaz Ali as well as an SRK fan but I decided to not take it personally. Just wish I had known they were shooting in Amsterdam.
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madhusudhan194
October 10, 2022
“And the movie really worked for me. Yes, he acts like PK Aamir had a baby with Dhoom 3 Aamir. But there were so many scenes where I was smiling at how sweet it all was.” – Exactly what I was saying over and over in the LSC threads in this blog earlier. This is historically how we have let good films down. LSC is a beautifully Indianized story that’s actually better than Forrest Gump in many ways. Yes, the central performance doesn’t always work but why lose out on so many joys these films offer, and then wonder why they didn’t do well in theatres?
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R
October 11, 2022
“who unlike engineers or accountants, put their heart into it hoping the end outcome is loved”
Abishek Balaji, what do you mean by this statement? Every engineer or accountant i personally know, has been putting their heart and soul into their work which they take immense pride. Unfortunately the outcome is not as glamorous for it to be recognized. Hope you edit that statement.
I don’t believe in cancel culture or boycott bollywood agendas. But, the trailer and movie goer reviews were not impressive enough.
With your review here, I will watch a few minutes to start with (just like you). And by the way, this is coming from someone who is a big fan of AK, so much that I even went and watched Secret Superstar in the theaters just to go see AK on the big screen. A film’s protagonist carries the burden so he/she has to has to touch the hearts of sincere audience for it to work.
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Madan
October 11, 2022
R: Also, vice versa, not every junior or senior artist working in the movies is pouring ‘heart and soul’ into their work. It just looks that way because of the glamour associated with the profession. Forget films, people acting bit roles (and badly at that) in small plays won’t hesitate to tell the whole world about their involvement in XYZ. ‘Invisible’ jobs like accounting or engineering don’t usually provide such opportunities to boost the ego. I would also say that rather than there being passionate jobs and non-passionate jobs, it is passionate environments and bosses (and the lack thereof). Many ways to skin the elephant…and motivate or demotivate the artist/employee.
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abishekspeare
October 11, 2022
Madan: New to RWI laam illa, naa dhaan XD. Loved your article and agree with you – my positive reaction to the movie was based on the low expectations i had, and more importantly the simplistic route most of AK’s movies have taken since Lagaan. Most of the points, like “How did he travel in non-AC”, wasn’t really plodding me as the whole Forrest Gump vibe is very far from logical logic and more about emotional logic(to me), which worked here given the largely simplistic approach of the film
Rocky: Shamshera was a half-ass attempt at a hero-centric masala movie that didn’t work at all for me
R: Being an engineer myself, surrounded by people who hate the job and field, this is my perception – I don’t mean disregard to anyone working their ass off 🙂 . To me and the people i know, we react much more emotionally to movies than we do to softwares
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Madan
October 11, 2022
abhishekspeare: Thanks!
“my positive reaction to the movie was based on the low expectations i had, and more importantly the simplistic route most of AK’s movies have taken since Lagaan. ” – Fair enough, then. Due to the gruesome Aamir hype, I have never been completely on board with the simplistic-ness and I liked films like 3 Idiots or TZP in spite of their problems (and pretty much found PK boring). I would say Dangal set me up for better hopes from Aamir because that was surprisingly more mature than these films, including his performance.
But that’s the other problem with this film, which I didn’t cover in the write up. Earlier Aamir ventures could get away with being simplistic because they also had a simple premise in essence and a strong DA MESSAGE at the core. LSC being a faithful remake of Gump does not have that message imperative nor the same linearity. Perhaps because of that, it exposes the lack of dimensions, the extreme externality of Aamir’s acting, especially when internalizing seems to be happening for everybody else in the film.
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