Munshi Reviews

Ad Astra sees James Gray return to traversing emotional barriers between a father and his son after his under-loved The Lost City Of Z– a film set in the Amazon, to a space drama that is as expansive as it is intrinsic. It’s about a son voyaging through space to reach his distant father- his towering legacy and emotional absence never behind him as he ruminates over his own choices in life.

Like all great space films, the immense, engulfing void of darkness here acts as a metaphorical backdrop to an individual’s piercing and haunting questions. They might be rooted in personal history, but are nevertheless universal. Contact, Interstellar, Arrival are some recent Sci-Fi’s that hinge on themes of parenthood, and Ad Astra joins these movies through its exciting combination of action and introspection, although with lesser grandeur, black holes or wormholes.

Brad Pitt has long embodied the idea of a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body. It was quite a shock seeing Brad shift from an animated, picnic-cooler-esque outing in Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood to a stoic, repressed and resigned performance here. He plays Roy, a member of America’s “Space Command”, and the first time we come across his glorious facial contours is when he is fixing a space antenna. This enormous structure extending from the surface to the sky is one of the many fresh extra-terrestrial set-pieces where one can genuinely appreciate Hoyte Van Hoytema’s camera prowess and Kevin Thompson’s production design. It’s a visually arresting feat of human innovation but doesn’t last for long, as Roy plummets towards earth as a result of a massive cosmic surge emanating from deep space that destroys the antenna. He is calm throughout, as his BPM never goes above 80, however, the folks back home inform him of his father’s existence and possible involvement in the occurrence and send him out to Neptune (points for planetary representation) to stop him from doing so, something we later realize was bound to increase this number.

What follows is a trip to the moon, now with a Subway for your inter-galactic hunger pangs; it seems like humanity has leaped forward in space exploration, and capitalism has closely followed. An incredible Mad Max-esque sequence involving lunar buggies ridden by moon-pirates provides a window into the director’s ability to offer fresh takes on spatial action, but that is not what he wants to achieve with this movie. From here, Roy travels to Mars, and while on the way, must take a short detour to attend a distress signal from another spacecraft, a sequence specifically designed to highlight Roy’s pensiveness and emotionless state. On Mars, he tries to communicate with his father, but to no avail. With the help of Ruth Negga’s Helen, Roy decides to take matters in his own hands and pilots the ship destined to deliver a nuclear payload to his father’s location. He eventually does so alone, as the rest of the crew suffer ill fates in the process. The son suffers the sins of his father, and the parallels between the two male leads now become quite unmissable. One must also note the pitch-perfect casting of Tommy Lee Jones as Clifford, the father. His grumpiness and indifference towards humanity seem to be inspired from his perpetual disdain in his actual life, and he does justice to his character.

One theme that comes out from the proceedings of the film is that of the search for a divine entity, a search for a higher being (Clifford) who has abandoned us mortals (Roy). He finally arrives near Neptune, only to find that his father has no interest whatsoever in coming back. After a brief struggle, he asks Roy to let go; let go of him, along with his conceptions of who he is. 

“Now you see, we’re all we’ve got.” Roy says, and that the higher truth or transcendence isn’t out there near Neptune, but back home, with friends and family. There is comfort in realizing that whatever’s out there is beyond our physical reach and comprehension. There is humility and gratification in smallness.

Towards the end, Jodie Foster’s character in Contact says, “If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” It is not a stretch to say that our inability to focus on those who are close to us- choosing to look outwards, to the stars, when you must look within and around- is an even more significant loss.

The Invisible Man, whose presence and conduct made a very visible mental and physical impact on the protagonist and this viewer (chills down the spine after long), is a recontextualization of a popular DC monster from the 30s for the #MeToo era. It is a not-so-subtle commentary on gaslighting and the ignored female perspective; however, to build a world of horror and helplessness from the plight of a young woman whose ordeal is deemed imaginary, is quite a feat, given the limited budget this movie had.

Elisabeth Moss plays Cecilia, the abused, who escapes the abuser tech-bro’s Heat-esque urban fortress in a taut and tense opening sequence, giving the viewer an insight into the level of frustration and fear that must have merited such a level of preparedness. As our tortured protagonist, she finds comfort and acceptance with her childhood friend’s family but confines herself to their house. Soon, instances start happening around the house, that confirm her disbelief of her abuser’s apparent suicide- an open door, a cooking stove catching fire, sheets off in the night. He’s there, and nobody is going to believe her.

 In movies belonging to this particular genre, the camera is quite often the extension of the audience- we see what the DOP wants us to see- only here, our eyes continuously search the negative space the camera frequently pans to for a trace of our titular character, or any clue pertaining to his presence. An unseen threat is the most dangerous, especially if you are the sole bearer of its dread.

A welcome trend in horror cinema now-a-days is the reduction in reliance on jump-scares and instead subverting expectations to produce lasting shock value. Case in point: the restaurant scene. Within seconds, this unsee menace executes such a left-field gory and visceral tragedy that the only reaction that this viewer could muster late in the night was “Whoaa!!”

The director seems quite adept at combining modern tech with thriller after Upgrade, but an essential ingredient this time around was plot and characterization, as a lesser movie would have jumped straight to cheap scares and sexual voyeurism stemming out of said invisibility, a la Hollow Man. The way Moss’s character recuperates from her initial vulnerability to deliver that final act, is a testament to her prowess of displaying a down and defeated woman who exacts satisfying vengeance. The rising score towards the end makes the whole journey very empowering. 

The Golden Age of television has blessed us with great TV dramas like Barry, Atlanta, and Legion, to name a few. Killing Eve is one such byproduct of this ongoing renaissance and with good reason. Adapted from Luke Jennings’ novel Codename Villanelle by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Crashing), it is a Europe-set BBC America drama series currently in its second season and has been renewed for a third already. The show has been praised by critics and audiences alike, featuring in several top-ten lists and winning the Golden Globe for best actress in a TV drama.

To a casual viewer, it might appear as just another run-of-the-mill spy and assassin affair, albeit set in a more picturesque Europe, with Sandra Oh’s titular Eve chasing around Jodie Comer’s Villanelle, a brutal, proficient assassin. However, it will be a fool’s errand to dismiss it as such, as this series is more than just a cat-and-mouse chase with a few deviations from the usual genre machinations; it is a brilliant character study of two complicated and queer females who first become fascinated by the other but gradually find themselves in a complex relationship defined by admiration, fear, and longing.

Eve is a regular staffer working with the British Intelligence. She is brilliant, jumpy-but-accurate and hungry for a real challenge but is deskbound; she desperately wants to run along with the big guns in the world of spy-espionage. Her unmatched ability to piece together unrelated information pertaining to a string of international murders leads her to conclude that a single person might be behind them; one female assassin. She is soon fired but piques the interest of Carolyn (Fiona Shaw), who asks her to come work with MI6 to help catch this serial killer. Slowly but surely, she becomes obsessed with finding her and catches Villanelle attention, who becomes equally intrigued by her.

Villanelle played terrifically by Jodie Comer with a Russian-French accent, easily enraptures a viewer more than Oh. She is stylish, carefree and a flamboyant killer who loves what she does. She is basically a woman-child; an adult-kid who cares little about rules and codes of operation; she brings a playfulness to her actions and always walks away scot-free. She is amoral and lacks empathy, like any other psychopathic serial killer. Perhaps that’s what makes us enjoy her presence more on screen; murderers and their inherent psychologies have always drawn attention from our collective consciousness, maybe because we are all always one bad day away from losing it; this makes us uncomfortable, but always ready for more.

The feminist undertones appear normalized and inherent to this world, a welcome transition from the usually observed inclusion of female leads in entertainment done for the sake of diversity and inclusiveness. These females are complex characters; one can’t simply assign their actions and motivations to their morals and virtues, especially in the case of impulse-driven Villanelle. Towards the end of the series, a similar behavioral attribute awakens in Eve, and although she is more accountable of the two, her actions in the season finale point to a similar absurdity, a permanent blip in her general nature that can’t be narrowed down to one single thing. It is equal parts sexual and psychological.

The drama is a crime-thriller in nature and any further classification is impossible, or rather futile; this is a show that bounces from being absurdly funny to dark and tragic within a matter of minutes and places, all of which is held in place by the lead performances. It flips the genre-constants by operating in a woman’s world; besides our protagonists, several side-characters are also female, while husbands and male colleagues are surprisingly secondary to the proceedings. Such narration has never been seen before on the small screen.

The show is co-incidentally timed appropriately for the #MeToo generation, a timeliness not lost on Sandra Oh and the creators. Although the real-world might take some time to catch up to the femininity shown in Killing Eve, we all could spoil ourselves by reveling in this extraordinary tale of predator and hunter.

I stumbled upon Lovesick after finishing up Crashing, the UK based Netflix series by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is currently heading Killing Eve. Similar to Crashing, which has a frantic yet absorbing outlook to its proceedings plot-wise along with the is-it-or-is-it-not dynamic that faces its lead protagonists, Lovesick works the conventional rom-com angle, albeit using time-jumps and Chlamydia as a starting-off plot premise. It is the most honest depiction of love, relationships and human endearment I’ve seen on screen.

It’s a true blue Britcom, with the lead characters winning over this viewer in a matter of episodes (which are luckily half-hour in length, a trend being picked up by several creators). It’s vivid, entertaining, and resonates well with anyone who has dabbled in the mystic affairs of the heart, or anyone who has one; Lovesick will encroach you with a warm sensation, a tender reminder that love is quite not what you expect, and that timing is a bitch.

Dylan (Johnny Flynn) has contracted an STD and is now obliged to contact all of his previous sexual partners so they too can check it out. As a result, the viewer is taken on a journey of his sexual history across the timeline of 6 yrs., with time jumps happening from long back to yesterday and back again, with each girl’s name becoming the title of the episode. It gets a little tiresome plot-wise, but the show, rather dwelling on his exploits, makes up for it through its beguiling commentary on relationships of all kinds.

What also emerges from these episodic voyages in time is an understanding of the relationship between Dylan and his compadres, Evie (Antonia Thomas) and Luke (Daniel Ings), with the former being the subject of an ill-timed romance with Dylan through the 3 seasons, and the latter a womanizer who is searching for direction in his life. One of the best things this show has got going for it is the pure, solid and wholesome chemistry between the three, as they wander through the tribulations of life. Evie is not reduced to a sudsy damsel, wallowing and waiting for Dylan to finally see her feelings for him; however, her desperate love for him makes her suffer alone, an accurate reflection of how some people deal with an ill-timed love. Luke, on the other hand, brazenly plows through women, unbeknownst of his own feelings, eventually grappling with a terrifying notion of not finding love and stability. He is a true friend, used not just for the raunchy banter, but also as someone who’s in it all with you. He has the most gratifying character evolvement on the show, something such side-leads are not usually privileged to in rom-coms. These characters will unknowingly win you over, as they grow and evolve while trying to find true love, stability, and a genuine human connection.

Where the show truly stands out is in its ability for natural, organic progression. Nothing feels coerced and there are no grand gestures, as shown by certain decisions taken by Angus and Jonesy, two peripheral characters which could have been treated to mere empty secondary characters in lesser hands. In the world inhabited by our leads and run by love and loss, these two provide contrasting approaches to romance; one miserably alone who just can’t seem to find happiness; the other who chooses to be surrounded by it. Rarely has the viewer seen such attention been given to such roles.

The show presents a sobering realization to its viewers that love is a messy, confusing affair and not what you’ve seen in a Richard Curtis or a Nora Ephron movie. It comes bearing complications and may take years to realize, but once you have it, it’s best to live in the moment.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton