Directed by: Ramin Bahrani
Cast: Adarsh Gaurav, Priyanka Chopra, Rajkumar Rao, Nalneesh Neel, Mahesh Manjrekar, Swaroop Sampath, Kamlesh Gill, Vijay Maurya, Master Vedant, Ram Diwakar and others
Incredible India ! That’s what you want to show to the world and what do you end up showing ? The filth, the grossly disgusted dirty slums, scavengers and slum dwellers? That’s the Indian bioscope that can earn you brownie points when displayed at international level, exactly what you see in this Netflix original film.
Balram is a jolly villager from the remotest village (dirtiest) in some corner of India, he’s ambitious and a viciously smooth operator. He makes his way into the household of a wealthy corrupt man and procures the job of his America returned son’s driver. Everything goes smoothly until a tragic incident that changes the entire discourse of his life!
If you’ve read the novella you’ll realise that some positive elements have been scrapped out in the movie, why? Maybe creative liberty or a motive to cater to the international audience. The director projects Indian men as foul mouthed, chauvinistic, regressive individuals, and how only an NRI is shown as progressive and liberal. Sigh! When are we coming out of this frog in a well mentality? Indians are also misrepresented as highly superstitious and hungry for money, sex and jobs. Not all are-right? While the novel was well balanced, the movie is more of a desperate attempt to impress foreign audience, look we got the dirty picture of India you enjoy !
Less said about the direction the better. The director is inspired by overrated films like Slumdog Millionaire(2008) and Midnights Children(2013) both depicting only the filth and dark side of India. The final ten minutes are complete let down and reflect on the director’s incompetency to handle this beautiful novel cinematically.
Actor Adarsh Gaurav in the central role of Balram Halwai is a revelation! Simply brilliant, he makes the character his own, everything from his body language, dialogue delivery to grasping the depth of his role he masters the act exceptionally well. Equally impressive is the producer of the movie Priyanka Chopra (when I read the novel I’d visualised Kareena Kapoor in this role no idea why), she very effortlessly plays the role. Rajkumar Rao though a fine actor is miscast, his put on American accent sounds unintentionally funny. Was that really Swaroop Sampath playing that pan chewing foul mouthed chief minister? Unbelievable.
Well, IMO this could’ve been handled better, the novel written by Aravind Adiga was far better and a best selling award winner at that, the movie adaptation isn’t impressive though, more like an half baked version. ⭐️⭐️
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