Riverdale – Is that really Archie & his gang?

Like most kids from the eighties,  I was a huge fan of Archie Comics. They were light, fun and a nice escape from the more intense books we often read. The comics I read were the original ones in which everyone in Riverdale were innocent and sweet. I never really knew about the alternate series that was published years later. So imagine my surprise when I watched the new CW series, Riverdale.

When I saw the series title Riverdale, on my Netflix recommended list, I was so excited. As someone who read Archie Comics a long time ago, I wanted to see if this series could recreate the magic of Archie and his gang. Instead what I found was a show that has nothing to do with the original Archie and his friends. With the exception of names (the age, looks and ethnicity of some of the characters are changed), some traits and the fact that they live in Riverdale, there are no other similarities between the original characters and those on the show. I was disappointed at how dark the story and each of the characters were.  For example Jughead is not the goofy guy who has nothing on his mind but food, instead he is a troubled teenager from the wrong side of the tracks, Betty is not just the sweet, innocent girl, she has a dark side now, Veronica is not the super rich girl anymore, she needs to be more careful how she spends her money, Mr. Lodge is not the loving millionaire, he is instead a criminal spending time in prison, Mrs. Alice Cooper is not the loving, understanding mother, but an almost evil, overbearing mom, Ethel Muggs is not the girl chasing Jughead, Betty is his girlfriend instead, and last but not the least Ms. Grundy is not the grey-haired teacher who punishes Archie all the time, but rather a hot young music teacher who has an affair with Archie (yep that’s right). There are many more such twisted creepy changes that you are left wondering who are these people? If they wanted to make a murder mystery, why couldn’t they do it without altering the personalities of the characters so much. Is it really that impossible to have sweet, innocent people in this day and age? So much for making this show to celebrate 75years of Archie comics.

That being said, Riverdale is not a bad show (though it does have some faults). In fact, I may have loved the show better if they hadn’t used the Archie franchise, but then I wouldn’t have clicked so quickly to watch the show if it hadn’t been named Riverdale (guess that was the whole point, click-bait). Riverdale is almost like every other teenage drama on CW, but falls short of being great, because it is mostly constrained by its characters. While they were spot on in casting some of the characters, it is Cole Sprouse’s Jughead that steals the show. Honestly I watched the entire season just for him. Cole is perfect as the weird, tortured and damaged Jughead, who still cannot come to terms with the fact that Riverdale is not what it used to be.

While I am still not sure what to think of the show, I have a feeling I will be there right in front of the television when the second season premiers. Maybe I have unknowingly fallen for this Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica after all.

LIE – Love Intelligence Enmity

Hanu Raghavpudi’s latest film LIE is a movie that could have been, but isn’t. The movie itself is slick, stylish, and intriguing at times, thanks to its interesting plot. Had the director stuck to the main plot of the movie, LIE could have been a great film. Sadly he doesn’t and it shows in the narration. While watching LIE the only thing on my mind was, what exactly was Hanu thinking when he wrote this script. It feels like he first came up with the main plot, which mainly involves the protagonist and antagonist and their cat and mouse chase to catch each other. This part of the story is quite interesting with its twists and turns and well defined plot. But then Hanu must have felt that this was not enough to last two hours, and our protagonist needs a heroine – enter the heroine and her entire family, none of whom have anything to do with the actual story of the film. At this point Hanu must have realised that he could not justify the existence of our heroine in his plot, so he decides to bring down two people from heaven to help him run his story forward. These two characters are none other than Indra and Narada (yes, you heard me right). So every time the story gets stuck or there is a need for our hero and heroine to meet, Indra intervenes saving the writer the necessity of coming up with a plausible solution. This, along with some cinematic liberties taken while writing the script and questionable editing, stops LIE from being the film it could have been.

I was really looking forward to LIE because Hanu’s KVPG is one of my favorite films. I still believe that KVPG’s screenplay is one of the best in Telugu cinema. So when I saw the promos and rushes for LIE, I was convinced this was going to be a great film too. For a movie with such a cool title LIE (meaning a movie about love, intelligence and enmity), and top notch performances (especially Nithin and Arjun), cinematography, action sequences and background score, it is sad that it still failed to live up to the expectations. Though one doesn’t get bored while watching the film, they will definitely find their patience tested at times.

Cheliyaa (Kaatru Veliyidai) – It’s high time we stopped romanticizing abuse

Recently, I had the misfortune of watching this disaster of a movie Cheliyaa (the dubbed version of the Tamil film Kaatru Veliyidai). Advertised as a beautiful and intense love story from India’s most celebrated director, Mani Ratnam, I had very high hopes for this film. Sadly what I found was a very poorly written and executed story where neither the characters are well-developed nor is the plot. While the film does have its moments, they are so few and far in between that you can actually count them on your fingertips. The only saving grace for the film is its cinematography. As arresting as some of the visuals are, it is not enough to capture the interest of the audience. I almost felt sorry for Karthi and Aditi who were trying to do their best with a script that was obviously dead on arrival.

While the overall film may be considered tolerable (if not for the sloppy narration and terrible Telugu dubbing), the fact that they tried to portray abuse as romance is what irked me the most. Cheliyaa is one of those stories where the hero (VC) and heroine (Leela) fall madly in love with each other at first sight and we are led to believe that they belong together for all eternity. Except unlike the other typical love stories, in this story VC treats Leela like shit. He takes her for granted, never loses an opportunity to belittle, abuse, insult, or embarrass her in front of others, looks down on her opinions since she is a woman, and shows her off as nothing more than a trophy. For a girl who declares in the beginning that she cannot stand men who do not treat women with respect and always believes in an equal partnership relationship, our heroine not only takes the abuse but also falls for every apology and excuse he comes up with, however hollow and insincere they might be. Not once in the duration of their relationship does he treat her as an equal or with respect.

It is only after she leaves him and he ends up in prison does he realize how much he loves her. However Leela is oblivious to this change of heart that VC has, so imagine my surprise when in the end she goes running to VC and tells him how much she loves and misses him – the same guy who took her for granted, abused her constantly, and pretty much left her when she was pregnant. For someone who spent so much time establishing the abusive nature of VC, it is really sad that the director did not think it was important to show him actually seeking professional help to work on his issues (because his issues are not something that would just go away), so he can be a better husband to Leela. But instead they chose to end it with Leela just accepting VC for who he is. It is about time our filmmakers understood the difference between intense romance and abuse, because what we see in Cheliyaa is more of an abusive relationship than a romantic one, and it is high time we stopped romanticizing abuse.

Toilet – Ek Prem Katha

One of my biggest fears while traveling in India is access to a decent toilet. While our homes and some of the places we frequent to, have decent toilets, traveling to certain parts in the country is still a nightmare. Try as we might boast about how much India has developed in the past many years, this is still the sad truth when it comes to our country. It is said that, no innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet system. It is in fact considered the top invention of the period. But sadly more than half our country and a third of the world still do not have access to it.

Toilet – Ek Prem Katha is a great effort that sheds some serious light on this very important issue in the most entertaining way. Akshay as the loving Keshav who has to fight tooth and nail to build a toilet (his Taj Mahal) for his wife, and Bhumi as the new bride Jaya, who is having a hard time adjusting in a house with no toilet, and Divyendu as the funny, loving and supporting younger brother Naru, play their roles to perfection. The moments in which Keshav is trying to help his wife out, and Jaya is trying her best to make things work are very heartwarming and tear inducing at the same time. To understand Jaya’s plight, all you have to do is remember that one time when you really needed to use the bathroom but could not find one. That is Jaya’s problem, except that at the end of the day we go home where we have access to our very own toilet, where as she is stuck because not only does her house not have a toilet but neither does the entire village.

While the movie is about the importance of having access to a toilet, it is also a sweet love story, which the film-makers do not forget till the very end. Keshav’s transformation from a guy who doesn’t understand why his wife is making such a big deal of something so trivial, to the man who finally understands her plight and tries his best to not only get (build) a toilet for her, but also for all the women in the village, is handled beautifully. So please do not pay attention to the negative reviews some of the critics have given this film, calling it a political propaganda among other things. We all know that we have a problem and it is about time we all did something about it, and Toilet- Ek Prem Katha is a great start for that conversation.

Fida over “Fidaa”

There are five different kinds of movies, some that we hate, some that we are indifferent to, some that we like, some that we love, and some that create such overwhelming emotions that it is impossible to think of anything else for a very long time. Fidaa is one such film. It is a simple but beautiful film, with great music, brilliant performances and full of heart. I can’t believe it took me so long to watch a film that I had looked so forward to, before its release (Summer vacation and jet lag 😦 ). As a fan of Shekhar Kammula and Sai Pallavi (or Malar, i.e. until today), it was agonizing being stuck in Mumbai when the movie released. I couldn’t wait to get back to US (it is funny how easily accessible Telugu films are in US when compared to Mumbai) and finally watch the film. And what a film it is!

First and foremost, thank you very much Shekhar Kammula for consistently penning such amazing characters and stories. While your stories are always beautiful, what I love most about your films are your female protagonists. I love how they are all strong minded, independent women, who are not afraid to live life on their own terms, be it Roopa in Anand, Seeta in Godavari, Bhanumati in Fidaa and even the girls (Madhu, Shravs & Appu) in Happy Days. It is your attention to detail when penning such characters that sets your movies apart, and I hope you continue to create such beautiful characters.

While Fidaa starts of as a story of two families coming together through marriage, Sai Pallavi steals the show the moment she appears on screen as Bhanumati. Her presence on screen is so arresting that it is hard to take your eyes off her. Two years ago when I fell in love with Malar, little did I know that it would take only two years for me to replace Malar with Bhanumati as my favorite character played by Pallavi. She is everything a girl should be, sweet, kind, loving, strong, independent, fierce, and naughty, all this while wearing her heart on her sleeve. The way her face lights up every time she sees Varun in the first half, has you gushing and grinning like a silly teenager madly in love. Equally touching are her emotional scenes in the second half. And when she dances, she sets the screen on fire. I cannot remember when I last saw someone dance so gracefully. What I loved most about Pallavi is her confidence in carrying out the role of Bhanumati with almost no makeup throughout the film (probably a first for a mainstream Telugu actress), and she looked fantastic!

As for Varun, lets just say that Pallavi gave us such a convincing Bhanumati only because Varun Tej was the perfect Varun. Fidaa works only because Varun and Bhanumati shared such an awesome chemistry. This is definitely Varun’s best performance till date. From the moment Bhanu lays eyes on him, you know why she is falling so hard and fast for him. He is Mr. Perfect in every sense of the word, and you have to agree with Bhanu when she says in the end that he is really the “Okate Piece”. This is the second time this year, that I went to watch a film for one actor and walked out falling for another. The first one being Adi in Ninnu Kori and now Varun in Fidaa. He really was something.

Last but not the least, thank you to the makers of the film who chose this beautiful story to show us the Telangana that the rest of us know so little about. As someone from Andhra, I was a little heartbroken when our state split in two, but I soon realised how important it was for the people of Telangana to preserve their dialect, and culture among other things. I am a strong believer in preserving all languages. Languages are not simple, and they were definitely not born in a day. It must have taken our forefathers a long time to come up with each of our respective languages / dialects and it would be a shame to let any one of them die. So watching Fidaa and listening to some words that I have not heard before, but still knowing what they mean, was a beautiful experience. I hope this is just the beginning of many more to come.

Fidaa is without a doubt Shekhar Kammula’s, Varun Tej’s and Sai Pallavi’s best film till date. So, if you haven’t watched the film, try to catch it before it disappears from the theaters. I bet, you will be Fida over “Fidaa”, I know I am 🙂