Realism On Screen | Editor's Pen

Hi Friends,

Recently two films released – Jobs and Madras Café. This weekend Satyagraha saw the screen. Indian collections of these three films won’t be able to match comedy extravaganza by Rohit Shetty – Chennai Express. However, in pieces, they will leave impact. Tragedy is that none of these three would remain in public memory. Regarding Madras Café, I might be wrong because of the political connection it has and point of view portrayed. These films have a problem – something you won’t feel in Mississippi Burning or The Social Network.

Realistic films are tricky romances. You overdo it and before you can realize, novelty is ruined. One need to balance between what people know and what people want to know. One need to realize that too many things can confuse people especially when plot has references to real world. One can add score of subplots in like of Golmaal and Chennai Express, no one will notice but you cannot do the same with Satyagraha. Remember what happened to Rajneeti?

Anyways, this edition has an exclusive interview with Raanjhanaa fame Swara Bhaskar. Show love.

Wishes

Sujoy Ghosh   

Jobs | iDisappointment | Critique

Thanks to makers of Jobs that they didn’t made it a chick flick. Well, partly they did but saved some points. There are problems with this being a biopic. But before we move any further on that, Jobs is not a bad film. It’s just that it fails to deliver what it set out to. Jobs is a nice little film and that’s it.

The movie tries to capture different events of Steve Jobs’ life – his days in Reed, early Apple days, his exit and return to Apple. Thanks to his iconic stature, there is enough material online to create a docu drama. Film however creates a rather flimsy outline and looks superficial in most of the frames. As the poster suggests, its colorful but not classy. It lacks the finesse of Apple products.

The element of crescendo is missing. There is no reason to love any of the characters. The audience-actor-character connect is too weak for a biopic. Except for one moment in the end when Jobs gives voice to commercial, there is no scene that gives the character any depth. Emotional scenes like his fight with girlfriend and Woz’s exit are wasted. The film and story fails to inspire in any way – an essential component of any biopic.

Ashton Kutcher is amateur. It reflects on screen. Dermot Mulroney is the only saving grace as far as acting is concerned. Other actors did their job given the scope and detailing. Camera work is good. Music is good. But they fail to help the weak script. Maybe it’s time to rework on this title. They made a shabby film for such a powerful title. Scorsese would have taken it to Mars. Moon, if he had a bad day.

Written By: Sujoy Ghosh