Federer: Twelve Final Days (2024)

When I got to know that there is a documentary being filmed on Roger Federer, I was excited. It was going to be released on 20th June 2024 to the public, and I wanted to watch it on the same day, particularly as I was anticipating the day to be tough for other reasons.

As things turned out, the day wasn’t tough and I postponed the decision to watch the documentary. I thought I’d be able to do so before Wimbledon 2024, and started watching. Then the tournament began, I was hoping that #8 remained as the record, and I focused on watching Alcaraz live.

Finally, I completed watching the documentary today.

I was thrilled to see that it is an Asif-Kapadia directed documentary – I loved ‘Senna’ and expected excellence here too. I knew Rafael Nadal would be shown in good light, but didn’t expect the portrayal of Novak Djokovic to be as good. It was a nice touch.

“I am glad to be retiring before all of them”

“I spent time without them on the tour. It is their turn now”

What surprised me is the f-bombs thrown by Federer, and yes Nadal J

IMDB currently rates it at 7.3. I am curious to know what is the reaction of a non-tennis fan to this documentary. There is a bit of history in it, with the Laver era and Borg era getting limelight. 

Federer fans, surely watch it.

12th Fail (2023)

I usually lament about the storytelling in Bollywood biopics, and I didn’t know what to expect when I went to watch ‘12th Fail’. I knew nothing about the storyline, but since Vidhu Vinod Chopra is associated with the movie (and there was strong word-of-mouth recommendation), I took a chance.
I am truly glad I did.

Based on a non-fiction book, 12th Fail is the story of Manoj Kumar Sharma’s life. Hailing from Chambal, he overcame school-level academic failure and poverty to eventually get selected to the Indian Police Service. The movie depicts the struggle of many students appearing for the UPSC (and how it differs from the PSC), and what it takes for some of them to do better than the others. For instance, the command over English is deftly tackled.

There is much to love about the movie’s writing, pace and authentic casting (for example, the UPSC tutor); I was particularly impressed with how some aspects of casteism were addressed. The Brahmin protagonist is shown cleaning toilets and working in an atta chakki to provide for himself as he studies – today, he would be eligible for the EWS quota. He receives ready help from a much richer Brahmin fellow-aspirant – something that eludes the oppressed castes. This friend later disrupts his love life by spreading false rumours to his girlfriend’s parents, but he chooses to forgive him.

Another gorgeous scene is when the rich friend tells a senior aspirant, “Isn’t it only 4 attempts for us?”. The senior aspirant replies with a smile, “You have a problem if we have 6 attempts?” The senior aspirant goes on to play a critical role in ensuring Manoj Kumar Sharma succeeds.

Even though his path to UPSC mains and interview was vastly different from that of Manoj Kumar Sharma, the movie reminded me of my upright father more than once. I was happy to see the UPSC Dholpur house, and I also wept copiously at many scenes.

The EWS quota and the NRI quota (both based on varying degrees of financial stability) get preferential treatment over the SC/ST and OBC quotas, and discussions about “merit” are barely done in the case of the former two. I recollect multiple discussions with my father on this, and am truly grateful for the role he has had in shaping up my views since childhood. He gives full credit to the UPSC and job content as the game changer when it comes to his views on caste.

I racked my brains to check why I found Vikrant Massey (he plays Manoj Kumar Sharma) familiar – I haven’t watched any of his other movies – and finally landed on the Cornetto ice-cream ad that featured him and Alia Bhatt.

Watch the movie. It is a sleeper hit, and I am very happy about that!

Oppenheimer (2023)

A few months ago, when I got to know that Oppenheimer was going to be released in 2023, I had mixed feelings. I did not want to see a movie that showed the “other side” regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are others who felt the same way as me – the Japanese have delayed the movie from being screened in Japan. Yet, I remained curious, particularly since I knew about Albert Einstein and his pacifist ideas. Perhaps I could learn something from this movie too about some of the greatest physicists the world has known.

And I did learn. More from Christopher Nolan, i.e. His storytelling is compelling and engaging as ever, and I hope to read “American Prometheus”, the book on which the movie is based.

The cast is fantastic – I particularly liked Robert Downey Jr, Josh Hartnett (such a delight that he was in ‘Pearl Harbour’ too) and yes Matt Damon – all big names. Cillian Murphy worried me in parts with his thin frame. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Oppenheimer is a patient of depression and schizophrenia, and was grateful that Nolan showed this aspect in a physical sense too. I almost expected stills from J. Edgar featuring Leonardo Di Caprio to be shown in this movie. That would have been interesting to see!

“Genius is no guarantee of wisdom. How could this man who saw so much be so blind?”

The Manhattan Project is an amalgamation of what happens when Physics, Armed Forces and Politics come together. The usual call to violence – some lives lost are better than more lives being lost – is opposed by Physicists who signed the Szilard petition including David Hill (Rami Malik in a persuasive role), and they are expectedly ignored.

“You drop a bomb, and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don't wish the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction”

It was interesting to see the portrayal of women and womanising in the movie, and how sexism is prevalent in Science and Academia. Nolan doesn’t demonise the mistress nor places the wife on a particularly high pedestal – something that other moviemakers mirroring societal norms tend to do.

“Well, a fool or an adolescent presumes to know someone else's relationship, and you're neither, Lloyd.”

In 2023, Oppenheimer is the movie I have liked the most. I was happy to see Picasso’s painting ‘Woman sitting with crossed arms’ appear in the movie. I wonder what the world would have been like if a majority group of women Physicists had worked on the Manhattan Project.

I hope my father can watch it sometime - Physics always reminds me of him. If any of you like Science and politics come together, don’t miss it! 

Air (2023)

Last weekend, I wanted to watch one of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ or ‘Before Midnight’, and found that while they were both available on OTTs, they weren’t available in India. I was very disappointed, but started going through the list of movies on Prime, and landed on ‘Air’.

‘Air’s cast intrigued me, and as I am a fan of Matt Damon, I decided to watch the movie without looking it up on Wikipedia first. To my utter surprise, I had landed on a sports drama – I love watching the ones made by Hollywood – and I carried on.

5 years ago, I had read ‘Shoe Dog’ and got to know a little bit more about Nike and Phil Knight. ‘Air’ presented another opportunity – I got to see how the marketing deal had been struck with a young Michael Jordon led by baseball talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (played by Matt Damon), who had identified his greatness very early on. It was fascinating to see how Matt Damon captured the body language of an earnest middle-aged man in reasonably poor physical shape. However, I liked Viola Davis the best in the movie – she plays Deloris Jordan, Michael’s mother.

There are many lines that made me smile, and I loved this one.

“Everyone at this table will be forgotten as soon as our time here is up - except for you. You're gonna be remembered forever, because some things are eternal. You're Michael Jordan, and your story is gonna make us want to fly.”

After watching the movie, I read a bit more about Air Jordan, Michael Jordan, and his family. His father was shot dead in 1993 and Michael decided to retire from the NBA for the first time. His sister has indicated that she was sexually abused by their father, and I might read ‘In My Family’s Shadow’ written by her.

Similar to Jordan, there was expectation that Roger Federer would sign a lifetime deal with Nike, and that didn’t go through in 2018. I’ll not forget the “Advantage, Nadal” campaign in 2022 with Nike hailing him as the GOAT.

As an aside, Nike has been in the news for sexual harassment lawsuits, and I am waiting to see how it all ends. For now, watch ‘Air’.

Sanju (2018)

Since the early 90s, I have watched Sanjay Dutt’s movies and read about him in film magazines. I found him more realistic in ‘Khalnayak’ than ‘Saajan’, though I watched both mainly for Madhuri Dixit-Nene and in 2019, I went to see their pairing in ‘Kalank’.

As for Sunil Dutt, Sanjay’s father, I was happy to see him feature in the remixed song with Deepika Padukone in ‘Om Shanti Om’. My main memory of him is associated with ‘Mera Saaya’.

Watching ‘Sanju’ was difficult, mainly because it brought back so many memories. All those years ago, despite attempts by multiple film directors, I could clearly say, “I don’t understand anti-heroes” and didn’t spend time on knowing why a terrorist takes to arms, why drug addicts take to drugs, why people reconcile with lawbreakers many years later or why evidence is the cornerstone of justice. Simpler times, where one could effortlessly move on from one song to another, one movie to another. There was no question of watching the movie again, unless Doordarshan miraculously obliged.

While ‘Sanju’ has performed really well at the box-office and won accolades for Ranbir Kapoor, watching it left me feeling unsettled. I am experiencing fatigue related to jail scenes, police atrocity and underworld presence, and this movie had all of this. The movie does a good job of clarifying why Sanjay Dutt isn’t a terrorist, how stress can trigger episodes of drug abuse, how parents can bring up their children well and yet lose them to outside influences, how wives can be understanding and supportive of philandering husbands. Lots of fictional characters have found their way into the movie, and I stopped looking for reality once I realized this. 

Movie-watchers are from all age-groups, and I think about the children who would have had access to ‘Sanju’, much like me with ‘Saajan’ all those years ago. I have more admiration for ‘Saajan’ now – an orphaned disabled poet found a happy ending. Social media suggests Sanjay Dutt has found his happy ending too.

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

City: Mumbai

Date: December 2019

Mode: Theatre

In one of my illness spells (possibly the May-June spell of 2019), I came across the trailer to this movie, and recollected it with detail to the sibling. She was surprised to see me able to pay attention, and we (along with her husband) later watched the movie in the theatre just before I took ill again. I had even written about Le Mans in my FB Sports Group. I have a simple explanation to my being able to recollect the trailer – the movie stars both Matt Damon and Christian Bale, and they looked like they were friends in the movie. The secondary explanation is that it involves car racing.

The movie has been praised by critics and watchers (and won Oscars), and has plenty of fantastic moments. I particularly liked how the death scene involving Christian Bale’s Ken Miles was done, and how Matt Damon’s Carroll Shelby sheds a few tears in front of Miles’ son. Both scenes are poignant and do not focus on debris of any kind. 

Lovers of car racing will find plenty to love about the movie, and for those who don’t understand the speed involved in car racing and the skills of the racers, watch this scene from the movie.

Rush too had a sequence that showed how quick Daniel Bruhl’s Niki Lauda is, and when Niki Lauda passed on in May 2019, I was convinced that his death wasn’t real. I kept watching this scene from the movie to convince myself that he was still alive.

Shakuntala Devi (2020)

Place: Chennai

Date: August 2020

Mode: Amazon Prime

After “Crazy Rich Asians (2018)”, "Little Women (2019)", Parasite and Contagion, Amazon Prime is becoming like a theatre watch for me, and it is nice to be able to watch some movies despite Covid. I keep movie watching for weekends, and it is a nice routine to follow.

My latest watch is Shakuntala Devi. My mother and I watched it together, and enjoyed it. I first heard of the movie via Nayanika Mahtani, the writer of the movie – we are both in one online group. I got curious to see how the movie has been written and to my pleasant surprise, it is well written and well edited. As with any biopic, I am left with questions around how true the incidents depicted in the movie are, but I must say that I liked that the movie didn’t have too many songs. Perhaps the casting of Vidya Balan in the lead role had something to do with this – she isn’t known for her dancing skills.

Both my parents have witnessed Shakuntala Devi in action when she visited their educational institutes, and while I had heard of her, I must confess that I didn’t know much about her. Via the movie, I got to know that she opted to marry a divorcee and herself got divorced later. It makes me view her as a gritty woman. Her difficult relationships with her mother and her daughter have been fleshed out well, and I shed tears in one scene where she visits her childhood home after her mother has passed away, and she bawls at the sight of her mother’s material belongings that include newspaper cuttings of her performances.

The feminist flavor given in the movie to her choices make me want to know more, especially in the context of her book on homosexuality where she has referred to her ex-husband as being homosexual. The movie shows that she says this to sell the book better, but the Wikipedia entry says her book went unnoticed when it was published. 

The movie made on the “Human Computer” is worth a watch.

Rush (2013)

In the past 5 weeks, I have spent some time admiring two extremely good looking men. The second is Hrithik Roshan in Bang Bang, and the first is Chris Hemsworth in Rush. I have watched Chris in The Avengers, and he made for a perfect Thor.

Last month, I watched Rush again on television, and then thought about my incomplete post. I had watched Rush last year itself, soon after its release in India. That particular weekend was a great weekend – I had watched two biopics based on sports - I had watched The Fighter on television. As for Rush, since it is based on F1, I had wanted to watch it as soon as I could.

The sibling and I had spotted VJ Yudhishthir (Yudi) when we had gone to watch Rush. The minute James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) appeared on screen, I realized why Kimi Raikkonen considers him as an idol, and why his legend lives on - he is supposed to have slept with 5,000 women. In today's times, he would be considered a sex addict, and asked to go through de-addiction.

The movie paints the F1 circuit in a realistic and gripping manner, and credit goes to the director Ron Howard who has previously directed A Beautiful Mind. There are a few scenes that struck me as unreal, and the wikipedia entry shows that some scenes had been created specifically for the movie. For instance, the scene where James Hunt beats up the journalist who asks insensitive questions on the impact of Niki Lauda’s looks on his marriage.

This year, I realized the casting is perfect and the lead actors and actresses resemble the real-life characters. This link has more information, and I am going to post two pictures.

This is the real Niki Lauda and James Hunt.

This is a still from the movie.

I found it painful to watch the scenes post Lauda’s crash at Nurburgring, Germany. I shed some tears watching the scenes at the hospital, and when Lauda tells Hunt that while he was responsible for the crash in some way, he was equally responsible for getting him back to racing.

There is this exchange between James Hunt and his wife Suzy.

Suzy: Why have you come here, James?

James: To get you back.

Suzy: You don’t want me back...you never wanted to be married in the first place. You did it because you hoped it might change you...settle you down... help with the racing. Not because you loved me. And who knows, if it had been just the drinking, or the dope, or the infidelity, or the moods...it might even have worked...but when it’s all of them?

James: I know. I’m terrible.

Suzy: No, you’re not terrible. You’re just...who you are...at this point in your life. And God help anyone that wants more.

James: Will he be able to give you more? He has quite the bad boy reputation himself.

Suzy: What’s important is how it feels to me. And it feels like he adores me.

The real-life incidents are slightly different from what has been depicted. What would I have done if I were in Suzy's place - the movie character's place? If this question had been asked last year, my response would have been that I would not have gone skiing 'that weekend' with another bad boy. I would have just let some dreams die and reconciled for second best. Today, my response is that I would have first left Hunt and then gone skiing at a later date.

The references to rats are delightful, even though I am no fan of rats in real life. Lauda says, “Behind my back I know some of you guys call me ‘The Rat.’ Because I look like one. It’s meant as an insult. But I don’t mind it. Rats are ugly, sure. And no one likes them. But they’re intelligent. With a strong survival instinct.”

This remains one of the best movies I have watched.

Manjunath (2014)

In 2008, I was briefly associated with the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust and later got to know that a movie is being made on Manjunath. Among other reasons, his story captured headlines because he belonged to an elite institution, and there were people who could speak up for him post his death.

Do take a look at the trailer here – the biopic is being released in May 2014. I still wish biopics made in India do away with the song-and-dance routine and get made in documentary style. 

There are several others who do their duty silently, and do not get recognition. Spread the word, and watch the movie. For Manjunath, and those like him.

Born Free (1966)

Soon after we came back from Srinagar last year, the then-Yokefellow and I went to a shop in South Mumbai that sold pirated CDs of movies and sitcoms. The sibling had also accompanied us – I was scheduled to buy her birthday gift that day. “Born Free” was one among the CDs – I can’t recollect now whether it was my choice.

The movie is based on a real incident and starred a much-in-love real life couple (Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers) as the Adamsons who raise an orphaned lion cub Elsa to adulthood.  Joy (played by Virginia) wants to release Elsa back into the wild, where she truly belongs. This is not an easy task, as Joy and George go on to discover. Post the movie, the actors became committed animal rights activists and they established the Born Free Foundation. As for the real George and Joy Adamson, they separated - George was apparently interested in lions and Joy was interested in cheetahs.

I’d highly recommend this movie – the scenes with the lions are shot very well, and the music is very good.

After watching the movie, in the course of some conversation, I got this text – “Poor Elsa. I will train you.” I said something related to Simba from The Lion King, and left it at that.

The Social Network (2010)

“The Social Network” is about how Facebook was conceived as an exclusive club first, how the idea grew into something much bigger and continued to rate high on the coolness quotient, how Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) became the youngest billionaire in the world, how he cheated on his best friend Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield, who has also acted in the interesting "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus"), and how he has dealt with lawsuits.

At Harvard in 2003, a boy of above-average intelligence thinks what he does is the best thing in the world – there is little respect shown to his girlfriend’s intelligence or subject choice. After getting rejected by her, he decides to write an algorithm that compares the photos of girls in his college and gets those who know them to rate the photos. He blogs when he is drunk and compares women to farm animals. He meets two rich twins and their business partner after the photo-comparison application becomes hugely popular. He doesn’t hesitate in asking his rich Brazil-born best friend to sponsor his idea and later doesn’t oppose diluting the best friend’s stake to 0.03% from 34%. He falls for the vision shown by Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) and agrees when he says,"Drop the 'The.' Just 'Facebook.' It's cleaner”. He knows what it is like when things don't go in accordance to his wishes. He looks disinterested while he is processing and retaining every bit of what is being said. He feels left out of exclusive clubs. He loves Facebook.

The movie has everything going for it – perfect casting all across, a tight storyline, dialogues that are intelligent and raise uncomfortable questions that linger, and characters who are of similar age as me. For the record, I really enjoyed Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Mark. He confirmed one thing to me – I can deal with the arrogance of investment bankers better than the arrogance of technology geeks.

The movie also reminded me of the issues I had with facebook initially – the trivialization of relationships and ease of rejection, the ability to establish independent personas – one in the real world and one (or more) in the world of facebook, the disappearing boundaries between personal and professional worlds, the manifestation of negative behaviour like stalking and lurking.

Facebook is now valued at $65 billion. While watching the movie, I wondered what Mark felt about having an Oscar-winning movie made on his life so early on. He is 26 years old and is still growing the company. He has only dated Priscilla Chan – the movie paints a different picture.

The sibling had watched the movie soon after it was released and had excitedly told me to watch out for the twin brothers in the movie. I watched the movie yesterday and told her that it was the same actor who played the role of the Winklevoss twins. His name is Armie Hammer. You should read about how he played both roles here – there is a model who stood-in for some of the scenes, and then his face was digitally replaced with that of Armie.

Technology makes the impossible possible?!

I am going to leave you with two thoughts. The first one - you might want to read this review. The second one -

Marylin Delpy: What are you doing?
Mark Zuckerberg: Checking in to see how it's going in Bosnia.
Marylin Delpy: Bosnia. They don't have roads, but they have Facebook

No One Killed Jessica (2011)

Watched the movie?

The movie is based on the Jessica Lall case. This is how the case progressed. Put briefly, Jessica Lall was shot dead in April 1999 because she refused to serve a drink to the hotheaded Manu Sharma, the son of a politician. Manu Sharma was arrested and later released on bail. Media intervention began much after the case was declared as shut. The case was reopened and Manu Sharma was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Jessica was killed and Manu is going to spend his life behind bars - all for a drink.

I found the movie to be a good mix of reality and fiction. Vidya Balan does a competent job as Sabrina Lall, and I liked the way the investigating officer and Shayan Munshi were portrayed by Rajesh Sharma and Neil Bhoopalam respectively.

Who has delivered a knock-out performance? It is Rani Mukerji (her surname reads this way now?). She is awesome in her role as the foul-mouthed investigative journalist. She swears in English mostly, prompting laughter from me when my father remarked in a perplexed fashion, “The censor board allows language like this in movies now?”

I reminded him of “Omkara”.

It is an odd proposition to play the character of a woman lacking pluck – you mouth dialogues that might make you cringe, and then perhaps you start believing in them? If Rani had not played that silly character in “KANK” (or “Baabul” for that matter), my feeling is that this talented actress would not have lost track. “No One Killed Jessica” is exactly what she needs, and she is wonderful. “Yuva” had given me an indication of the strength that she is capable of bringing to her character, and this movie reemphasizes that.

Amit Trivedi has come up with an engaging composition. I had noticed the title song when it first started playing on channels because Delhi features prominently in it.

The movie makes a reference to the lecherous behavior of the average Delhi man on the road (or perhaps the difference in attitude of the two sisters). Sabrina and Jessica are walking down their street in broad daylight, when a pillion rider on a bicycle pushes Sabrina and she almost falls. Sabrina doesn’t object to the behavior, and Jessica does. She runs behind the cycle, pulls the man off the cycle and hits him.

It is not a coincidence that the Rani of Jhansi hailed from the North.

Watch the movie.