Three weddings and four funerals

Film: Finding Fanny

Director: Homi Adajania

It is said that a film can change your day, your mind or your life; and Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny is a strange little tale that, if nothing else, will make your day. The director’s third, this film unfolds comfortably around you and makes you live its story while it is happening to its characters.

The film opens with a first person narration by Angie (Deepika Padukone) who leads us into a quiet village called Pocolim in Goa, where Ferdinand Pinto (the post-master of that village, played by Naseeruddin Shah) receives a letter he had sent 46 years ago – a letter expressing his love for Stephanie ‘Fanny’ Fernandes. For those of among you who are immune to irony, read the previous statement again.

Pocolim is a small village, and as Savio da Gama (Arjun Kapoor) promptly states in a scene, “Here, everyone’s business is everyone else’s business.” Angie is a widow, having lost her husband Gabo (played sportingly by Ranveer Singh who lights up his 15 seconds on screen with as much joie-de-vivre as he does in that Ranveer Ching song) on their wedding day. Oh, let it be mentioned that he dies due to choking on the figurines atop the wedding cake. If the irony in the film was not clear to you with the postmaster’s mail not being delivered, here’s your second chance.

                                     

Angie’s mother-in-law, Rosalina ‘Rosie’ Eucharistica (Dimple Kapadia) is a woman of repute and a control freak. Now, add to this mix a renowned painter (Dom Pedro played by Pankaj Kapur) with a fetish for big women, and you have a melting pot of quirkiness.

Here’s a legend to help you link the five characters quickly. Angie, a widow, wants to help Ferdinand find Fanny, using Dom Pedro’s car, which he bought from Savio. She convinces Dom Pedro to lend the car by allowing him to spend some more time with his muse and her mother-in-law – Rosie. And since none of this sorry lot can drive a car, Savio, Angie’s old flame, is compelled to do so. Also in the car - Rosie’s cat.

There you have it, an unlikely group on an unlikely mission to find love. The only thing common between all of them is longing and the quintessential need for love. The outcome of this crazy road trip is quite predictable, however, this predictability does not stem out of you having out-witted the writer and the maker, but instead out of hope. The film does to the characters what you wish to be done unto them.

The humor of Finding Fanny is its situations, more than its words, which means irrespective of whether you watch it in Hindi or English, you will have laughed at the same instances. Most of this aforementioned humor is embedded in irony and unless you watch closely, you may miss out on certain jokes that have been painstakingly constructed within the narrative. However, it must be said that the writers have caught the right vein in writing the dialogues for the English version of the film. “Waiting for Christmas or what?”, “Why means what?”, “I think there’s a robber outside!”, are the dialogues that seem like a part of the setting. One simply cannot pull off writing Hindi dialogues for a Goan character without ridiculing the Goan or Hindi or both.

The setting plays a very important role in the story. First and foremost, these characters could not exist outside the realm of Goa – the perfect blend of eccentric, compassionate, loving, comical, simple-minded and otherwise content folk. Secondly, it sets up a great backdrop for a journey, especially those where you end up finding something completely different than what you set out to look for. To top it off, Anil Mehta’s camera has managed to capture some splendid landscapes of a vintage car easing through the twirls and swirls of exotic locations.

The ensemble cast further outline the caricatures of their characters. Naseeruddin Shah is underwhelming, albeit sweet, as Ferdinand. Pankaj Kapur as Dom Pedro is sincere and does no more than is asked. As for Dimple Kapadia, this is perhaps one of her career best performances and emphatically stands out among the group. Arjun Kapoor as a disgruntled lover is bearable but can do much better. And Deepika, whose character is a personification of The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love, is simply adorable.

You love the characters, care for them and you feel the same way about life as they do. And somewhere in the first half hour, the story doesn’t matter anymore. You simply take a seat in the car with and try to find Fanny. Aren’t all our lives simply a search for the proverbial Fanny? (Pun intended, totally. Just like in the title.) A gamble, a venture in the dark, a chance…all of it built on hope. And amidsty its three weddings and four funerals, if there is one thing Finding Fanny does, is tell you that you are not alone in your search, it is with you.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Punching thin air

Film: Mary Kom

Director: Omung Kumar

If you walk into this Omung Kumar film with the expectation of being blown away by India’s most celebrated south-paw, you are in for a surprise. You do get punched after watching Mary Kom, however, it is not by of the inspiring story of MC Mary Kom, but by a glove filled with melodrama, unnecessary sympathy, in-your-face patriotism, untimely product placements and what feels like a bag of loose change.

The film begins with a little girl picking up a boxing glove from a wreckage and ends with her winning the world championship for the fourth time; between which, she faces opposition from within the community, fights corruption from within the association and all that comes with being an athlete, and a woman at that. The film journey’s through her life as the eldest daughter of a rice farmer to a national champion to being a wife, a mother and a world champion.

Frankly, there couldn’t be a better story to tell, and the failure here lies with the storytellers who simply glance through the important milestones and stitch those moments with melodramatic overtones. The screenplay is haphazardly strung together and there are moments in the second half where you are left disinterested as Mary oscillates between training and looking after her children.

The supporting elements to the narrative too fail to integrate and bind it into one compound and there are always little shots of melodrama to distract you from thinking how a lot of issues are being omitted. Right from the trivialization of the rebellion in Manipur to a caricatured portrayal of corruption in the system, the film overlooks many a fundamental problems. Be it the long scene where Mary is made to apologise for her outburst to the federation or the causal outburst where she, with no prior hints at the issue starts screaming that the federation is being prejudiced against her for being a Manipuri.

That apart, comparison to other boxing films would come automatically; however, that only weakens the case for Mary Kom. The moment you start thinking Million Dollar Baby or Raging Bull or Rocky (if you are into that), you realise how poorly shot it is. The scene where she picks a fight with a boy, or the montages of her training just highlight how uninspired and non-committal the film is.

There was a huge outcry about Priyanka Chopra playing the lead in the film, but after having watched the film, that criticism can finally be validated. Priyanka as Mary Kom is as poor a casting as it would be to cast Mary Kom to play Priyanka Chopra in a biopic about her life. It is the equivalent of Zack Galifianakis portraying the Mahatma in Attenborough’s Gandhi. The other characters in the film are too uni-dimensional, be it the no-nonsense coach, the skeptical father, the supportive husband, the spiteful federation representative and the fierce German nemesis.

The mushy background score, the perennially weepy protagonist and the patronizing story make for a tableau of sympathy-seeking story, which makes the treatment of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag seem neo-real. It is high time we stopped spoon-feeding emotions to our audience and leave it to them to appreciate the beauty of a life well lived. Mary Kom the person, Mary Kom the persona, and Mary Kom the phenomenon, are all let down. We are sorry magnificent Mary, we owe you a film.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5