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YouTube is a strange place. Here, a video of someone eating a bowl of noodles (mukbang) can get over two million views while a gem of a movie, made using a considerable amount of time, resources and artistry fails to get even a fraction of that attention. Viewership is unpredictable and were it not for its algorithm that leads the user towards videos based on their past preferences, I for one would not be spending as much time on it.

On the long list of works of art that have not gotten the attention they deserve is the 2015 Hindi-language drama “Ankhon Dekhi.” Released on Shemaroo Movies’ official YouTube channel more than a month ago, the film has just over 80,000 followers while the channel itself has over 17.8 million subscribers. So criminally undiscovered.

Written and directed by Rajat Kapoor, who has an amazing filmography of offbeat, unorthodox, low-budget treasures, Ankhon Dekhi is another feather in the cap of the filmmaker as well as its entire cast of talented actors. Unlike most Bollywood movies banking on their lead actors, the film is a team-effort of an ensemble cast who won many awards and accolades for the film when it released.

Rajesh aka Bauji (Sanjay Mishra) is a patriarch of a big, extended family living in congested confines of a small house in old Delhi. An event in his life leads him to decide that from then onwards, he would believe only what he sees. But the figurative “believe only in your own eyes” becomes literal and his new-formed eccentricity starts making life difficult for him and his family.

Bauji takes his family and friends on a new adventure in life with his only-believe-in-what-you-see theory as he starts denouncing God and everything he previously believed in. Basically a summation of comedy of errors, the film has its darker sides and an ending left to the audience’s interpretation.

Also read: Kate movie review: Old wine in new style

Veteran actors Sanjay Mishra, Rajat Kapoor, Seema Pahwa and Saurabh Shukla join a lesser-known ensemble of actors to create magic. The storyline gets absurd and abstract at times but the natural performance of actors and honest storytelling do not let the film lose its realistic shape. Every character is given a specific role and their combined contributions culminate in what has to be one of the finest Hindi movies.

Ankhon Dekhi is not only a film that entertains but also a visual treat that shares an idea with the audience. As a society, we have been so used to taking small bits of information for granted that we do not even question the integrity of the source. For us to believe someone is good or evil, we do not even need to see the person for ourselves. We are fed this information by the people and society around us and nurtured to believe in collective thoughts and opinions. Bauji, our protagonist, tries to break this shackle of mis/information and finds himself in all kinds of troubles, at the same time liberating himself from what he sees as lies he had been believing all his life.

Another factor that adds to the charm of Ankhon Dekhi’s unorthodox storytelling is the music which is melodious yet unique and again, criminally undiscovered. Composed by Saagar Desai, lyrics written by Varun Grover and sung mostly by Kailash Kher, the film’s score is based on Hindustani classical music but with a fusion of modern rhythms. Composer Desai takes the storytelling knack of Rajat Kapoor to create music that co-narrates the story of Ankhon Dekhi. Granted that the songs are not catchy, but they were not meant to be. Not all good music is supposed to be consumed like cookies by the masses and Ankhon Dekhi’s score is a prime example of that.

Who should watch it?

Ankhon Dekhi is a beautiful film that deploys comedy to deal with an existential question. The storytelling, acting, cinematography and music are top notch, and typical of Rajat Kapoor and his team. So for anyone who’s enjoyed Rajat Kapoor’s works, it’s a must-watch. For the unacquainted, you will still thoroughly enjoy the film and go on to explore more of his works.

Ankhon Dekhi

4 stars
On YouTube
Drama
Cast: Sanjay Mishra, Seema Bhargava, Rajat Kapoor
Director: Rajat Kapoor

I had heard a lot about Alex Michaelides’ ‘The Silent Patient’. Authors like C.J Tudor and Lee Child whom I considered the masters of thrillers were raving about it, calling it smart, sophisticated and a very clever book. It’s also being adapted into a screenplay for Brad Pitt’s production company. I put off reading it because the blurb made it sound like a garden-variety thriller. I only picked it up when I wanted a light read. I felt I could read a few pages and then do something else and come back to it and so on and so forth. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. The blurb doesn’t do justice to the riveting story. The Silent Patient is a taut psychological thriller that you won’t be able to put down.

Alicia Berenson, a rising artist, has been convicted of murdering her fashion-photographer husband, Gabriel. But after shooting him in the head five times, she stops speaking. She is taken to the Grove, a secure psychiatric unit, but no medication or treatment can make her talk. Theo Faber, a London-based psychotherapist, is obsessed with Alicia as he has spent two decades in therapy himself, trying to overcome the trauma induced by a father who was cruel to him. As Alicia has had a similar upbringing, he feels she will be able to connect with him and that he is the only one who can make her talk.

Also read: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: Blown away

The narrative has Alicia’s journal entries that give us an insight into her life because by the time we meet her she has already stopped talking. We also get to know other people like her husband, Gabriel, her brother-in-law, Max, and some of her friends through these entries. And they are all intriguing, undecipherable characters. Theo, while conducting therapy sessions with Alicia, also speaks to some of her relatives and acquaintances.

The switch between the two voices is refreshing and keeps you hooked because you feel like you are on the verge of discovering something that could be crucial to the plot. Michaelides is primarily a writer of screenplays and that skill has come in handy while working on The Silent Patient—the scenes are so descriptive and thus easy to visualize.

I liked the writing style of The Silent Patient. Not everything is explicitly stated but you can draw a lot of conclusions by analyzing the information you are given. Michaelides keeps throwing things your way to flip the entire narrative around and you are left rethinking everything you have read and reevaluating all your thoughts. The book has several consecutive plot twists that leave you speechless and wondering if any author you have read and loved thus far can now live up to the high expectations you will have from them.

The Silent Patient

Four stars 
Fiction
Alex Michaelides
Published: 2019
Publisher: Orion Books
Pages: 341, Paperback

It’s a bit like “Kill Bill” mixed with “Salt” and “Lucy” and a dozen other Hollywood productions that have femme fatales as their central characters. And like most Hollywood flicks that feature female assassins, Netflix’s latest release “Kate” is stylish, fast, violent and centers on betrayal as its main theme.

Such a cliché if you ask me, when some of the most dangerous women on earth have to be scorned at first to unleash their wrath upon men. It’s like they have to be brutally betrayed every time to find a purpose in life. Personally, I find this approach to filmmaking crudely reductionist and overused. 

Still, the American action thriller Kate is a fast-paced visual delight that’ll keep you entertained much more than the Hindi-language anthology “Ankahi Kahaniya” which was my initial choice for the review. But as its name suggests, the stories in “Ankahi Kahaniya” would have been best left untold. It’s a yawn-fest!

Now coming back to Kate, the movie is a commercial production that at times feels like one of those ‘fan-made’ trailers on YouTube which are created by cutting scenes from various movies and joining them in a sequence. So formulaic and unoriginal is Kate that you know who the actual villain is even before half-time. But there are elements that keep you entertained and not make you feel like you’ve not wasted your time. 

Also read: Shikara: Visually engaging but sans vision

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a deadly assassin who has been groomed from early childhood by her handler Varrick (Woody Harrelson). Even though she is a ruthless assassin, Kate and her agency have one understanding, one rule—they never kill a target with children nearby. But on one mission, Kate is forced to assassinate a high-ranking yakuza boss who is with his teenage daughter Ani (Miku Martineau).

Cut to almost a year later and Kate, haunted by her memories of terrorizing a young kid, decides to retire from her job. She discusses her retirement with Varrick, who is not very pleased with the decision but still agrees with her choice. But on her final mission to kill another yakuza boss Kijima (Jun Kunimura), Kate finds she is poisoned with a deadly substance called Polonium-204 which has no known antidote and she will die in the next 24 hours. What she does to find out who betrayed her and how she extracts revenge makes up the rest of the film. 

As reluctant as we are to give out spoilers, we’re sure more than half of our dedicated movie watchers have already guessed the finale. Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan and written by Umair Aleem, Kate is rummaged into an old Hollywood mold and then adorned with modern glitters to make it acceptable for the current audiences.

The cinematography, editing and background score of the movie combine to make it an exciting package. Together, they make the action sequences, which make up almost 70 percent of the film, seem fresh and captivating. Actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead seems to have trained herself well to pull off the hand-to-hand fight sequences as well as sword- and gun-fights. As the titular character, Winstead gets the most screen time in the 1hr 46mins movie and is impressive for most parts. But there are times, mostly during emotional scenes, when the actor feels like she’s too tired to act because of all the action sequences she had to perform.

When the titular character gets the most screen time, the supporting actors, no matter how talented, lose their presence. This happens in Kate to veterans Woody Harrelson and Jun Kunimura. The characters performed by the two seasoned actors do not get much thought in writing and are underwhelming to say the least. The potential they carry as actors and the impact their characters could have had are somewhat lost in the fast-paced sequences and linear storytelling of Kate.

Who should watch it?

Kate is a Hollywood masala film and we know by experience that masala films always tend to get good audiences. So for people who don’t mind watching a repetitive storyline in return for some eye-catching action sequences, Kate is definitely an entertainer.

Rating: 2.5 stars
Genre: Action, thriller
Actors: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Woody Harrelson, Jun Kunimura
Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

A historical fiction novel set in old Hollywood, ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ opens with rookie reporter Monique Grant being asked to interview the Hollywood star who has had a glamorous and somewhat scandalous life. Monique goes to meet Evelyn to get her story for Vivant, the magazine Monique works for under Frankie, an ambitious and ruthless editor. But Evelyn tells her she isn’t interested in a magazine cover—that it was just a ruse to get to Monique. Rather, she wants to tell Monique her life story that Monique is free to publish as an authorized biography once Evelyn is no longer around.  

The book’s primary narrator is Evelyn, interspersed with Monique’s voice here and there. She takes us through her life—from her foray into Hollywood in the 50s to eventually winning the Oscars in the 80s. We get to know each of her seven husbands and her one true love, Celia St. James, while being enamored by the glitzy but often chaotic Hollywood life. But how does Monique fit into the picture? And why is Evelyn ready to bare her secrets to the world when she has done so much to protect those she loved and herself by putting up a façade for so long? It’s these two elements that don’t let you put the book down for long. You want to know what exactly drove Evelyn to keep remarrying despite being in love with Celia. You need to know what her plan is now that she is almost 80 and thus no longer guided by the same beliefs as during her younger days.

Reid is a master storyteller who knows what she is doing and is evidently in love with her craft. There are sentences that you want to keep rereading. It’s the smoothest prose I’ve read in a long, long time. I’m quite stingy with my five stars but this one was a winner through and through. There is never a dull moment in the story. Everything that happens feels important and gives you a complete sense of the characters and their emotions. You love and hate all the characters equally, just as you have a love-hate relationship with most of your closest ones. Even the ‘bad’ ones aren’t really bad. They are just human.

Reid shows us that everyone has flaws but nobody is really unredeemable—that a lot of times who you are depends on what your circumstances are at that moment, that you aren’t defined by any one thing but are rather a culmination of many different things, decisions, and emotions. She also addresses the issues of homophobia, racism, and sexism and does it with so much empathy that nothing feels forced or out of place. Bottom line: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a flawless book that will always have a special place in my heart.

Five stars 
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Published: 2017
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Pages: 389, Paperback