Challengers (2024)

Earlier this year, when I saw pictures of Zendaya at the Monte-Carlo Open, I wasn't sure why there was as much focus. Later, I got to know about 'Challengers', the tennis-based movie in which she stars. I then saw that On Running, owned by Roger Federer, has a brand partnership with Zendaya. That was enough to get me interested in watching the movie.

For a change, I could recognise the brand placements in the movie. Nike, Adidas, Uniqlo, Head, Wilson, Babolat, On Running - all were familiar. Also familiar was the US Open background, with JPMorgan featuring prominently.

I loved the script - all three main characters are fleshed out well - and I loved most of the tennis sequences. Brad Gilbert has played a part in making the tennis look authentic, and code violations are introduced well. It was interesting to see that the female lead is the most tennis obsessed of the three. Perhaps the most talented too, with her career cut short by injury. I also liked that she is a Black woman.

The movie explores love triangles, male jealousy, sexual tension, financial stability cleverly, and shows how fights before crucial matches can have career-threatening impact. One wrong move, one serious injury and suddenly life changes dramatically.

I liked how the man-child authentically responds to him being called one. "I have played with a ball and racquet all my life". Perhaps he didn't charm only the characters in the movie :)

I am expecting the movie to get an Oscar nod for the script. Let's go!

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.

Ghoomer (2023)

In the past, I have enjoyed the interesting portrayals of women in R Balki’s movies (Cheeni Kum, Paa, English Vinglish). Across age groups, the women have a mind of their own, are decisive and experimental in their relationship status. So, the minute I saw the poster of ‘Ghoomer’, I knew I wanted to watch it. The sports link was evident, and to my delight the portrayal of disability too.

During illness episodes, one after another, I used to mention words that sounded similar, or words that meant more than 1 thing (remember paryayvachi shabd?) This time, Ghoomer reminded me of the song ‘Ghoomar’ from Padmaavat. Watch the movie to see why Ghoomer has a significant role to play.

Ghoomer has sought inspiration from the life of Karoly Takacs, the Olympic medal-winning shooter. Like him, the budding cricketer Anina played by Saiyami Kher loses her right hand in a freak road accident and must give up her dream of representing India as a batter. An older cricketer past his prime, played by Abhishek Bachchan, gives her career a new life by encouraging her to become a bowler instead. Like all good coaches portrayed in media, he makes things difficult for her initially, helps her build strength in her left hand, and eventually she becomes so good at bowling that she gets another chance to represent India, and goes on to win glory.

There are two other strong women in the movie – Anina’s paternal grandmother played by the fantastic Shabana Azmi (may everyone be blessed with considerate paternal grandmothers like the ones she has portrayed in 2023) and the trans woman Rasika played by Ivanka Das. Witty, observant and helpful, these women light up the screen when they appear.

Balki’s movies, however well-written, have a few moments of unbelievable drama that leave me flabbergasted, but the overall taste is so good that I am willing to let them fly by. I haven’t been tracking cricket for years now, but enjoyed the scenes featuring cricket and can see why women’s cricket is gaining popularity. I was happy to see more attention given to bowlers (finally!) and the references to Physics.

Finally, the real reason that I wanted to watch the movie – Anina is a person with disability (PwD). I liked the scenes featuring other PwDs who rejoice at her bowling spell, the looks given by her team members when the scoreline is against them and they miss having an extra batter, and I read that the DCCI (Differently-Abled Cricket Council of India) hosted a special screening of the movie for 50 paraplegic cricketers. So far, all good. What’s not good? Yet again, a PwD has been shown as a super-achiever and hugely inspirational figure, instead of remaining human with flaws like any other. The other option would have been to portray the PwD as an object of pity – disability portrayal offers only these two extremes – so this was better to that extent.

While I was a bit sad to see how quick Anina is to forgive the male driver who leaves her disabled and her childhood friend who gives her the idea to hand signal while driving, I wasn’t surprised. Forgiveness is expected of women, irrespective of the harm meted out by men. The only silver lining is that the male driver is repentant and tries to make amends. As for the childhood friend, he loves her.

Watch the movie. You’d be happy after doing so!

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’.

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.

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.