249. Web-series Reviews – 93

More web-series reviews…

Modern Love – Mumbai – Came out in 2022.  Exploring 6 unique yet universal stories of human connection and love in its varied forms – romantic, platonic, parental, sexual, familial, marital, self love.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

Amazon Prime's latest anthology series, Modern Love Mumbai, has multiple love stories combined together. It's a nuanced take on modern issues like homosexuality and acceptance, a modern-day millennial love, a mother-son Asian duo, lost-love and grief, finding independence and breaking free; all set against the backdrop of love.

1) My Beautiful Wrinkles - A poetic tale that teaches young ones to believe in themselves, and seniors to be proud of their wrinkles.

My Beautiful Wrinkles is about a widow, Dilbar (Sarika), who has lost her lover in a car accident. She has closed all the two uses of love in her life. She even tells her old-age girlfriends this. In one of the dialogues, she says, "Somebody should tell her that she is 63." Her friend (Navneet Nishan) replies, "There's no age for love." Dilbar regularly meets a young boy, Kunal (Danesh Razvi), to build his confidence for job interviews. After several meetings, he opens up to her and shares his feelings towards her. What happens next is all revealed in this 37-minute short film. My Beautiful Wrinkles gives a good message to both young and aged people about love and affection. This isn't the first time we've seen it. We saw the same theories in Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and Cheeni Kum (2007), but here the conclusion is different and effective, too. Sarika and Danesh look very natural throughout the narrative. Sarika looks gorgeous and stays relevant even with those pauses and slow motion scenes that haven't got any dialogue. Danesh is damn organic in some scenes, especially the very first scene when he has to sound nervous. Alankrita Srivastava's tale is pure at heart and noble when it comes to urban people who actually go through such crises in their lives. The poetic narration with that constant score playing in the background makes the viewing experience rich. As a whole, My Beautiful Wrinkles is a beautiful tale that deserves to be watched by two different generations together.

RATING - 7/10*

2) Baai : An LGBT romance goofed up with Baai's ultimate tragedy.

Hansal Mehta's Baai is about a young musician and singer, Manzu (Pratik Gandhi), who happens to be gay. He finds a perfect partner in the form of Ranveer (Ranveer Brar), who is a famous chef. Manzu's parents are ashamed of his sexuality and they prevent him from telling this to Baai (Tanuja), the owner of the house. The 42-minute short film is set in the Muslim Ghetto and had the potential to explore religious hatred, but because of its sexually advanced love story, it avoids the socially challenging topic. The climax doesn't really prove anything that can be called fulfilling because the pre-climax portion very much sums up things for the viewers. The narrative is slow and boring on occasion, but the performances of Pratik Gandhi, Tanuja and Ranveer Brar keep it steady. Mehta's direction is fairly decent, but doesn't offer anything up to the level. Overall, Baai is a decent watch for adults, but nothing too great.

RATING - 5/10*

3) I Love Thane : Just another age-gap love story with a beautiful reference to nature.

Set in the gorgeous locations of Thane, Dhruv Sehgal's I Love Thane is about Saiba (Masaba Gupta), who is 30+ and single. She is fed up with being alone and starts dating boys of different age groups but finds no one perfect. Then, she meets Parth (Ritvik Bhowmik), an audit officer at BMC who was once her junior, and love blossoms between the two. I Love Thane is a very simple tale and a bit trite in its content. Love with a small age-gap is too mainstream, and maybe that's why it hasn't got anything else to show. The English dialogues capture the urban culture very well, and Masaba Gupta looks like a proper city girl. She does look dull in a couple of scenes, but the rest of the time she is fine. Ritvik Bhowmik hasn't got a challenging role to play here, but he is quite simple in that simple role. Sehgal's vision to make a regular story set in urban characters is more about its beautiful scenery than its script, so as a whole it makes nothing but a one-time watch experience.

RATING - 5/10*

4) Mumbai Dragon : A traditional tale of a mother's unconditional love set against a modern community battle in Mumbai.

Vishal Bhardwaj's Mumbai Dragon is set in dark Mumbai - at least that's how it looks on screen because most of the scenes take place in Night. Sui (Yeo Yann Yann) loves her son Ming (Meiyang Chang) too much and is very possessive about him while being one of the rare left Indo-china species who is trying to keep the community alive. Despite her extra care, Ming falls in love with a Gujju girl, Megha (Wamiqa Gabbi), and they continue a live-in relationship. Mumbai Dragon is all about a mother's unconditional love for her kid, while the rest of the narrative tries to push in an outdated zone of 70s tragic family dramas. However, Vishal Bhardwaj makes sure that he ends it on a positive note and does not forget to pull off the best from the actors. Yeo Yann Yann is hilarious as a protective mother, whereas Meiyang passes with decent grades. Wamiqa Gabbi's glamorous avatar and accent will make you fall in love with her. In the meantime, you have Naseeruddin Shah appearing in a sweet cameo. In a nutshell, Mumbai Dragon is a nice, modern attempt at the old theories of mother-son relationship issues.

RATING - 6/10*

5) Raat Rani : Fatima Sana Shaikh rises twice like the Sun and the Moon in a single narrative that has a great inspiring message of woman empowerment.

Lalzari, played by Fatima Sana Shaikh, is a loyal wife to Lutfi (Bhupendra Jadawat), but she is a little weird and wild. She has a fire inside her but never realises it, until one day when Lutfu abandons her. She, then, discovers a new life of her own and makes a free, self-reliant woman out of herself. Fatima Sana Shaikh has a blast playing Lalizar. Just like Jasmine, she spreads her aroma through the Raat Raani and gives one of the best performances of her career to date. There's a quote, something like, "Rise twice in a day like the sun and the moon," that unknowingly describes her character and her performance as well. Bhupendra, as her husband, looks natural, and Dilip Prabhavalkar is pleasant. Shonali Bose delivers an inspiring tale of female empowerment, but more than others, it's about realising it by yourself. That makes it special. A few flaws in the middle put it down for a while, but then Raat Raani rises again at the end. In short, an encouraging tale of finding independence and breaking free.

RATING - 6/10*

6) Cutting Chai : The most relevant, compatible, and happening love story in the entire series.

Written and adapted by Devika Bhagat, and by Nupur Asthana, Cutting Chai is about Daniel (Arshad Warsi) and his wife, Latika (Chitrangda Singh), who have been married for 17 years. Latika is an aspiring writer and wants to finish her novel, but she hasn't got time to do so in 17 years of marriage as she was too busy with housewife things. Daniel loves Latika, but he's too busy to give her quality time and is always late for everything. This is quite a happening story for every married couple nowadays. That's why it makes a quick connect. I was literally out of the race during the middle of the narrative as the psychological stuff and backdrop were looking too unconvincing, but then came a terrific conclusion that made me fall in love with Cutting Chai. Chitrangada Singh and Arshad Warsi share great chemistry in this short film, and that's one of the best reasons to recommend Cutting Chai to you. Asthana's direction is a little messed up in the middle, but overall gives justice to Devika's writing - especially the climax. As a whole, Cutting Chai is arguably the best short in the entire series and unarguably the most relevant and happening tale.

RATING - 7/10*

OVERALL RATING - 6/10*

My take – An ok series.

 

Modern Love – Hyderabad – Came out in 2022.  Explores six diverse yet universal stories of different facets, shades and moods of love, all set in the city's many unique milieus.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

Neat and effective. Realistic depiction of Telugu youth (Hyderabad to be more exact). Nothing vulgar, nothing flamboyant, nothing melodramatic, yet touching and characters relatable. Kukunoor maintains thread of humor consistently. Acting standards and editing standards are much above average.

Female leads in almost all the episodes are pleasant to watch, looks-wise and performance-wise.

For a change I find Telugu dialogues are distinctly clear rendered with good diction.

Good work.

My Take – An ok series.

 

The Lorenskog Disappearance –  Came out in 2022.  When a billionaire's wife vanishes, Norwegian police must deal with the frenzied press and deceitful informants to find the truth. Based on real events.

One of the reviews from Readysteadycut.com

The semi-fictionalized story follows a police investigation in Norway in 2018 when the wife of a billionaire estate agent mogul, Anne-Elisabeth Hagen, went missing. The wealthy husband, Tom Hagen, appears troubled, but there’s an air of suspicion about him that’s detected early on in the series. His demeanor is troubling, and while it is a character on the screen, it is apparent that the series creators wanted to reveal the mixed feelings Tom brought to the authorities.

Is the Netflix series The Lørenskog Disappearance based on a true story?

Yes. If you haven’t yet watched the series, the story follows the unsolved disappearance of Anne-Elisabeth Hagen. The series claims to be based on real-life events and brings a timeline of the investigation’s events. So the series is semi-fictional, but it brings the actual events to life. Like The Staircase, The Lørenskog Disappearance tries to give the audience a perspective that rocked Norway.

The official premise is: “When a billionaire’s wife vanishes, Norwegian police must deal with the frenzied press and deceitful informants to find the truth.”

Who is Anne-Elisabeth Hagen?

Central to the story and real-life events, Anne-Elisabeth Hagen is the wife of the billionaire Tom Hagen. When Anne-Elisabeth Hagen went missing, there was an apparent ransom note left behind for the husband, asking for $10 million in cryptocurrency. The entire case was strange, and due to Tom Hagen’s status as a businessman, the case was not initially made public.

The investigation into her disappearance was confusing; there was no evidence of forced entry, and there was little forensic evidence. Even the ransom note had language problems, making the detectives believe it was fake.

Tom Hagen was finally arrested in April 2020 but was released 11 days later. To this day, he still denies any wrongdoing or involvement in his wife’s disappearance. In his only interview, Tom stated to the media that his marriage with Anne-Elisabeth Hagen was good and had issues like every other relationship.

Is the case solved?

Anne-Elisabeth is still missing today, with no body found. While it looks ominous, the police cannot confirm or deny if she is dead. However, there is no statute of limitations in Norway on murder cases. As long as the case is still open, the police can continue finding new evidence and maybe bring charges against Tom Hagen again in the future. They believe Tom Hagen was involved in his wife’s disappearance. While the story may be over in the Netflix series The Lørenskog Disappearance, it may resurface in the future.

My Take – An ok series

 

Shetland Season 7 – Came out in 2022.  Douglas Henshall is back for the last time as Jimmy Perez

The last couple of series of Shetland (BBC One) brought the previously much-loved series alarmingly close to shark-jumping territory, converting the remote and thinly-populated Shetland archipelago into a war zone teeming with people-trafficking gangs, murderers and drug dealers. Can Series 7 restore some sanity?

This opening episode slithered down the ramp for a promising start. Series 6 left the career of DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall, here making his last appearance in the role) hanging in the balance, in the aftermath of the death of Donna Killick and her attempt to implicate him in a cover-up, but this didn’t detain us long. To, presumably, no viewer’s surprise, a police tribunal in Aberdeen did a bit of stern legalistic posturing before giving Jimmy the all-clear, whereupon he was back on the Shetland beat in the twinkling of an edit.

The story this time looks (so far) quite intriguing, centring on a talented young author and illustrator, Connor Cairns (Nicholas Nunn, pictured below). He has just launched a graphic novel called The Wulver (a Wulver would appear to be the Shetland equivalent of a werewolf), which he did at a cosy little gathering at the Harbour Bar in beautiful downtown Lerwick. This was shortly after he’d heroically saved a drowning woman at a meeting of the local Wild Swim Club… might this assume greater significance later on? Anyway, the rosy glow of his auspicious book launch was almost immediately dimmed by Connor’s baffling disappearance.

Most of the episode was taken up with laying out possible clues mixed with teasing red herrings. For instance, an incident where a camper van recklessly drove two girls on bicycles tumbling into the verge led us to its occupants Nicole and Cameron Waldron (Dawn Sievewright and the infelicitously-named Gordon Brown), who seemed likely candidates for Connor’s abduction and/or death until we discovered that they weren’t. Even though they did cruelly dump a fake body in the front yard of Connor’s parents, causing hysterical distress to Connor’s distraught dad Danny (Andrew Whipp).

Ominous vibes emanated from the local students hall of residence, where a gothicky-looking girl told Perez that Connor was obviously dead (she knew this thanks to some woo-woo spiritual intuition). But the big reveal was the fact that Connor’s dad is an ex-cop from Ayrshire, who was involved with the death of drug dealer Pepper Waldron (see Waldrons op. cit. above) and was jailed for two years for corruption. And now he and his wife Rachel (Shauna Macdonald) are trying to put it all behind them by running the local Moss View B&B, where their veneer of tight-knit family bonding is already tattered around the edges.

But we don’t just watch Shetland for the plot. We watch it for Henshall’s always involving portrayal of the increasingly grizzled and greying Perez, with its repertoire of little twitches and tells which speak volumes about his intelligence and determination but also his shyness and insecurity. The death of his wife continues to cast a shadow over his tentative efforts at dating, and this time around his late father’s carer Meg (Lucianne McEvoy) gets the short straw as the woman continually at the mercy of Jimmy’s workaholic schedule. This ensures that anything resembling a date is doomed to be cut short by an urgent phone call summoning him to a morgue or a crime scene. It remains to be seen whether the future absence of Henshall will kill Shetland stone dead.

And as ever, the Shetlands look exquisite, shot here in beautifully composed tableaux hauntingly lit in blues, greens and greys as the camera’s eye roves slowly overhead. The landscapes seem to have been purpose-built for wide screen photography, as eager camera-toting tourists will be keen to exploit. Though they do seem to be having a bit of a ferry crisis up in the Highlands and Islands right now…

My Take – An ok series.

Cheers till next time😊!!