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'Sara'S' review: Anchored by a powerful script, this simple film breaks the conventions of the feel-good template

Jude Anthany Joseph's third feature, after Ohm Shanti Oshana and Oru Muthassi Gadha, released on Prime Video at midnight today. This seemingly feel-good film, also seemingly made in limited spaces and with a shoestring budget, tackles a concept and issue never tested before in Malayalam cinema  circles. In Sara'S, we follow the life of Sara Vincent (Anna Ben), a young, bubbly, yet unapologetic filmmaker who struggles to make it big in the industry. She continuously assists male directors and is in the scripting works of her dream film. Sara has decided, from her school days, that she would not bear any kids. This is when she meets Jeevan (Sunny Wayne); her relationship with him subsequently brings her ideology and decision into a confrontation with the established norms of society, family and child-rearing.  Anna Ben in Sara'S The best aspect in which Sara'S has excelled, without doubt, is its hard-hitting taut script. Debutant Akshay Hareesh deserves praise for managin...

Dunkirk- a war film about survival

A film by Christopher Nolan on a monumental event in world history promised moviegoers an immersive theatrical experience.    A whopping number of 400,000 British soldiers are stranded on Dunkirk beach, a site flanked by German warships and fighter planes. Commander Bolton ( Kenneth Branagh ) carries the onus of adventurously evacuating the colossal populace of troopers, which becomes a herculean task, even when "they can practically see it from there-home." Nolan deftly weaves in three different story-lines, centering around the historically significant beach of Dunkirk. The historic victory of the British civilian population even when the army faced a "colossal military disaster" is depicted with the required patriotism; however that is justified with Nolan's atrocious portrayal of the unspeakable horrors the hapless soldiers faced while in their tryst with fate and survival. James D'Arcy and Kenneth Branagh          Even though...

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri- when a mother embarks on a mission...

Reviewer-The Blog © is back after a very long hiatus with the review of the most acclaimed movie of 2017.  Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a middle-aged mother, frustrated by the Ebbing Police Department's indifference towards the investigation on her daughter's rape and subsequent murder, sets out on a mission to vent her anger by renting three unnoticed billboards, which consequently rattles up a few cages and raises a lot of eyebrows. The billboards question the inefficiency of the Ebbing Police Department, singling out a workaholic William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), the Chief of the Department, on whom the "buck stops", and irritates Willoughby's good-hearted yet racist confidante, Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell). How the eponymous billboards change the life of these central characters and the townspeople of Ebbing, Missouri form the crux of the story. Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand   Martin McDonagh, undoubtedly a maestro in c...