Netflix’s Kathal: The curious case of the two missing jackfruits and its serious, very serious ramifications Firstly, it was not discovered by a man named Jack. Secondly, it is not a fruit, but a vegetable. Writer Ashok Mishra spent many years in north India and developed a taste for Kathal, which is the Hindi name for jackfruit. Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is an evergreen tree (family Moraceae), native to tropical Asia and widely grown throughout the wetland tropics for its la...

Love Hostel, Review: Khaps, cops, corpses, more corpses and still more corpses It’s not about a hostel. But it is about love. And the price that has to be paid for falling in love with someone who follows another religion. Killings spread through the film like a pandemic caused by a particularly deadly virus strain, ‘LH Covid 22’. The makers could run a contest with the big question: How many people are killed in the film? The prize could be four tickets for the film, so tha...

Photograph, Review: Ode dear If only vignettes and mosaics could add up to a good script, Photograph would look refreshingly different. If improvised dialogue and incomplete scenes could substitute for a coherent narrative, Photograph would find its place in the album of memorable cinema. Forlornly, though, Ritesh Batra’s Photograph unpeels itself like the layers of an onion, offering emptiness at the end of the exercise, instead of discovery and resonance. Arriving with a sumptuous tr...

(Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra, Ritesh Batra, © Lindsay Bellinger 2019)   By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER   Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sanya Malhotra have an understated chemistry on-screen in Ritesh Batra's Photograph, without any unnecessary sentimentality that could have made this film feel a bit kitschy. Batra's script has so much heart it's very hard not to walk out of this film without some sense of self-reflection and wonderment.    (Naw...

Badhaai Ho, Review: No age to have a baby What if you discover that your mother is pregnant when you are 25 and in a steady relationship? Should you be happy? Sad? Feel outraged? Would you become the butt of jokes day in and day out? How would you deal with the development? Such is the off-beat premise of Badhaai Ho (Congratulations). [This review has been delayed for so many days due to serious issues with my computer, but the film, which was seen 10 days ago, deserves to be reviewed, and we...