I leafed through the Emirates’ flight magazine, looking for suitable films to watch. We have a long flight ahead. One Malayalam film looked promising. ‘Oru kuttanadan blog’. In the end that was the only film I was able to watch on my way to Dubai. The film was watchable. My only criticism is, why does a man in his sixties want to play a role half his age. There he is trying to convince us that he went to school with a woman who is not even 30. Surely there must be male actors in that age group who could have done justice to the role or they could have found an older woman to act the role.
On the return trip, I looked again. All the Oscar nominated films were available, but didn’t look enticing. Some of them didn’t even have good reviews when it was being shown in the cinemas. The one that won the award proved controversial and I wonder how these films get nominated for such a prestigious award. I saw ‘Roma’ on Netflix a couple of weeks ago and thought it was a charming movie. The main subject of the movie was loss, different kinds of losses and how an incident at the end helped the characters accept their losses and come to terms with it. The film I chose to watch was ‘If Beale Street could talk’. Once again the only film I got the opportunity to watch till the end. Travelling with two sleep deprived and tired children was not easy. I am glad I managed to watch the whole film. A film dealing with injustice where the main character ends up in prison for an act he didn’t commit. Another charming film which I thoroughly enjoyed.
All these films had something in common and that was there was no happily ever after ending. They all portrayed life as it happens and how the families, the characters and the individuals coped with what life had thrown at them and made the best of their circumstances. There was no fairy tale ending. Films with fairy tale endings give us hope but in the end life is what we make of it.
