Charlie from late 2015 is about two freedom loving individuals who are soulmates seeking each other or rather girl seeks boy. It is a conceit, a fiction of the whimsical, quirky, touching on magic realism type... the kind of Wes Andersonian influenced film-making I tend to groan at, but I rather liked this. I did not expect to but I did. Parvathy and Dulquer totally save this film from its own desire to go over the top. Korechu over ayi poyi annallum... the character of Charlie punctuating every dialogue with a guffaw... was that necessary? One guffaw every 20 minutes would have been adequate.
What is nice, is that the film-maker weaves many storylines into the main one, in a way that really works. The other really appealing element is that the character is an artist that actually produces good art; at times it is a bit over the top and so quirky and cute that it gets annoying but it is nonetheless pleasantly surprising because usually in films where the character is supposed to an artist, the art itself is very shoddy. The graphic novel in this film is really well done.
Parvathy seems a bit lost sometimes, maybe put down that huge backpack when you go to a wedding. Feels like the exact same scene from Hasee toh Phasee
Airlift
In one line: Malayali characters delegated to sidelines but Akshay Kumar steps into the reluctant hero role convincingly and the film itself is quite well made, aside from the truly bad belly dancing scene at the beginning.
Umrika
A story about a villager dreaming of America obviously made for foreign film festival audiences, but still a good story with a twist I didn’t see coming. Suraj Sharma of Life of Pi fame holds it all together; does he have screen charisma or what!
