Midnight’s Children

2 movies in a day that start with a character called Ghani (Anupam Kher).  But to be fair on who had a claim on that name earlier, it would be Salman Rushdie, considering that he had released the novel over 30 years back.  But the Ghani from David had significantly better screen presence and charisma (the character that is).

 

So the movie starts more or less where the book starts with the story of Aadam Aziz (Rajat Kapoor) – the doctor grandfather of our hero who is narrating the story as well.  The story of Aadam and Naseem (Ghani’s daughter) and the 7” hole that built their love story under the watchful eye (or should I just say watchful) father of the bride to be – Ghani.

 

And like the book the rest of the story meanders along from Aadam to his daughters – Mumtaz aka Amina (Shahana Goswami), Emerald (Anita Majumdar) and Alia (Shikha Talsania).  The only one with the meaty role is Amina thanks to the fact that she is our hero’s mother.  Emerald of course gets married to Major Zulfikar (Rahul Bose) and moves to the other side of the border.  Alia disappears after her introduction.

 

Soon enough, our hero makes his appearance at the stroke of midnight on the 14^th August 1947 or should I say 15^th August 1947 (always wondered what is the right way to call it).  But around the same time Sister Mary (Seema Biswas) decides that the love of her life – Joe – was right in saying, “the rich should become poor and the poor rich”.

 

So she decides to swap the tags that identify the babies.  And therefore, Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha) lands up living the life that could be considered – fit for kings and Shiva (Siddharth) has to live his life along with Wee Willy Winky after his wife dies at child birth.  Their lives thence is the story of this movie and novel of course.

 

I was looking forward to Midnight’s Children – the movie – because it was always going to be difficult to write the screenplay.  The book itself is written in a manner that is not most easy to understand.  The movie however unravels the story in a far more straightforward manner as compared to the book.  Also, the movie paints the written word through pictures and hence can be perceived as not so well made. 

 

Hardcore readers would not like the movie as much as the book.  But I thought there was a lot of justice done.  There were aspects that were skipped in the movie but if not, we could have been looking at a 2 part or maybe even a 3 part movie.  I may have gone for the 2 part to ensure that the important scenes were not missed out – like the prophecy from Ramram Baba of Chandni Chowk fame would have made for great viewing.

 

People who have read the book will go for the movie and may come out disappointed – but I think you should be a little more tolerant.  People who haven’t read the book may go for the movie and will come out disappointed because of the number of characters who seem to be crawling out of the crevices and leaving them confused. 

 

Overall, an average attempt this time from Deepa Mehta.  6 on 10. Oh and just one more thing – Suresh Menon as The Field Marshall Ayub Khan!!!! What were you thinking Ms. Mehta??? And that's not the only casting error in the movie - that was just the most gruesome.

 

Trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXgx6C8PHd4