The Twitching Tyrant

EMERGENCY | Director: Kangana Ranaut | Cast: Kangana Ranaut,
Anupam Kher

DID INDIRA GANDHI prevent her father from giving up Assam to China in the 1962 war? No, but it is a theory passed down on WhatsApp based on Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech where he, accord­ing to conspiracy theorists, abandoned Assam. Did Sanjay Gandhi hurl his plate at the dining room wall of the Prime Minister’s residence because his eggs were not done right? Yes, it is an urban legend corroborated by BK Nehru. Did Jayaprakash Narayan and Atal Bihari Vajpayee sing to each other in prison during the Emergency? Obviously not, but it does happen in Kangana Ranaut’s film, which lies somewhere between truth and fiction, between a saas-bahu serial and a psy­chological study of a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The result is an uneven, erratic movie, almost as temperamental as the woman whose life it hopes to chronicle. Was she a woman damaged by the ill-treatment of her mother, her aunt, her father’s demands, her husband’s promiscuous ways, and one who sought in her younger son, Sanjay, the attention she was always denied? Kangana Ranaut would have us believe that. Every wrong decision she made resulted from being in thrall of her son. Sanjay is a teeth-gnashing, driven and diaboli­cal young man responsible for every mistake she makes, played with oily-haired nastiness by Vishak Nair. The film lets Indira off the hook but also robs her of her agency. What we are left with is a twitching bundle of nerves with visions of her mortality.

Streaming Smart
It’s In the Genes

THE ROSHANS| Director: Shashi Ranjan | Hindi | Netflix | Documentary

It is raining hagiographic documentaries in Bollywood, where legacy building has emerged as a critical marketing tool. After The Romantics (2023) (Yash Chopra, middlingly satisfying) and Angry Young Men (2024) (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, electrifying), we have The Roshans. And what a surprisingly soulful watch it is. From the first of the film line, Roshan Lal Nagrath (known mononymously as Roshan) to his grandson Hrithik Roshan, the four-part series relives their ups and downs, suc­cesses and failures. For an authorised work, it is surprisingly candid, from Rajesh Roshan’s drinking to his nephew Hrithik’s shyness, a result of his stutter, two thumbs and curved spine. At a time when Saif Ali Khan has just been stabbed viciously, it also details the attempt on director Rakesh Roshan’s life by the mafia. It could have dwelt on Hrithik’s professional and personal meltdown after the failure of Kites (2010), but perhaps that is for a more honest biographer. For now, we will take Roshan’s melo­dies, Rakesh Roshan’s cheesily cool movies, and Hrithik’s philosophical outpouring as the camera dwells on his chiselled face. “My father told me to wave back at every single person,” says Hrithik, “and I realised it is not out of ego but out of humility.” Can any outsider compete with this kind of advice in the bloodstream?

BollywoodcinemaEmergencyentertainmentstreaming businessThe Roshans