There is always cricket playing on some channel, or football. Most of us are still working from home, making sure kids are linked to their classrooms as well. We now hope that someone’s child or pet or parent will interrupt the never ending zoom calls and offer us a respite. This weekend offers us the best kind of change.
Wind down with France’s best grape, order in and settle down for a wonderful evening in. Put an arm around the one who has stayed with you through the ups and downs you have faced, and confess to them inspired by Jane Austen. ‘If I loved you less, I would have talked about it more.’
If you are wondering how and why do I recommend this film every year, let me tell you a secret. All the women in all the towns in this world will have a movie like Pride & Prejudice that turns them into mush. Personally, Persuasion is my go to film when I want to be turned to mush puddle state, but Sense And Sensibility comes to mind too. Mani Ratnam got it right when he made Kandukondain Kandukondain and Jane Austen would have loved the film with Tabu, Mammooty, Ajith and Aishwarya Rai cast with the awesome Raghuvaran thrown in for good measure.
But, love is not all heart emojis, pursuing a loved one or even being a Juliet to a Romeo or remembering a young stowaway on a ship that sank. It can be all consuming and jealous too. And, no one does jealousy better than Shakespeare.
He says in Othello that a heart can be bruised through the ear, and that women can walk barefoot all the way to palestine to kiss the nether lip...Many a film director has tried to show us how love can blind you with jealousy, but Vishal Bhardwaj’s interpretation of Othello, where Desdemona was never as fragile as Kareena Kapoor was and never was Iago as mean and unkind as Ishwar ‘Langda’ Tyagi was.
Saif Ali Khan’s rage when Omkara or Othello chooses Kese Firengi over him is an unforgettable performance. Kareena Kapoor on the swing is something so sighworthy, you have to watch it again. You understand Emilia’s pain. Konkona Sen Sharma gives us a performance that keeps us glued, Even though the director’s Maqbool and Haider offer far more engrossing plots, Omkara still makes me weep.
It’s a paean to love that can corrode you from the inside. Gulzar’s ‘Jigar ma badi aag hai!’ may be a lighthearted song but it is so layered it will make you watch the film again. Omkara is indeed legendary and it is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Shakespeare may have introduced the concept of dying upon a kiss, but what would you do when there’s war around you, and the only thought that keeps you alive is a picture of a girl in a picture? After the war Zac Efron shows up at her doorstep and the rest is predictable. I would never in a hundred rational years recommend the dreadfully soppy Nicholas Sparks book-turned-movie, but here I am willing to make an exception simply because many of us are leading super complicated lives and The Lucky One is about a second chance at love after having been abused emotionally.
That got serious rather rapidly, eh? Let’s turn then to our support systems. Our families. They think they know best for us when it comes to our lives, don’t they? You’ve grown up trying to compete with ‘Sharma ji ka beta’ and am sure you bypassed the lad ages ago.
But, it’s fun to see managing mamas trying to get the best girls for their social awkward sons. I had a smile plastered to my face when I watched The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch on Netflix and I almost called a friend who has managed to escape the shackles of love so far, not because he’s been broken-hearted or anything, but because his mother is like the one you see here:
The trailer does not have subtitles, but do you need one? The film is delightfully campy, and it’s fun especially because we have all been through (or are suffering) the great Indian family plan for weddings. No matter how hard you explain that you’d rather have five people at the wedding, you end up with five hundred and the crusades on each side over one upmanship should make you want to step back and laugh.
And yet again, on my list of the most beautifully made films on love is a film that recently arrived on Netflix. It will take you back to the first summer you actually felt a tiny stirring in your heart for another person. That feeling was new and even after so many years it cannot be described in words. But then it was a book, and a film that is perhaps just as the words spill out of the page and into your heart. Young Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer will steal your soul with this film drenched in Tuscan sunlight.
No matter how old I get, the film Ten Things I Hate About You reminds me how volatile I used to be when younger. And no matter how many women swoon over Hugh Grant, and all the romances you watched, Disney+ Hotstar has Heath Ledger stealing Julia Stiles’ heart and I can still sigh over that bad boy. But men who don’t know love are like Robert Redford in Barefoot In The Park (1967, yes the movie my mum swooned over!) and Jane Fonda was just the woman to tell him off for overworking. So to find them again on Netflix in the film Our Souls At Night was a pleasure. Jane Fonda and Robert Redford added a wonderful warm glow to my heart
‘You wake up one morning you have everything, then the next morning it’s all gone. ‘ it’s that easy to lose love - people and things both - and when movies like this come along, you are glad it is two superb actors telling you the story of love and loss and hope. Jane Fonda and Robert Redford in a delicate yet strong story of love and death, told by director Ritesh Batra of the Lunchbox fame. This is love for all the lonely people in this world. It’s about not lying awake at night, waiting for sleep to claim you. But wait, you can’t sleep now! Who will watch all the Korean romance shows that are on Netflix? Perhaps some other time, eh? Here’s to love and soju next time… Besides, as the hero in the most romantic of all films of all time says, ‘We’ll always have Paris.’
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