Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Saying Wes Anderson films are divisive is putting it lightly. I felt Life Aquatic was a very self-indulgent, but I probably would have enjoyed the same film on another day. I still don't know how it ends and I frankly don't care to revisit it just yet. It tested my patience and I will try to watch it after I am done watching the rest of his works. Tenenbaums, my first Anderson film, was a delight and I loved it so much. What boggles me is how some people dislike such a densely written, straightforward comedy. So going in with a 50/50 record, I really wanted Moonrise to work. And work it did.

Moonrise shows us many kinds of love: a) the old, withering love - searching for reasons to be together b) the unrequited love and c) a newly blossoming love. Two unusually broken outcasts with no one else to turn to, Sam and Suzy are provided with compelling reasons to be together. Corresponding for a few months through letters, they don't stand on ceremonies when they meet each other for the first time since the first time. One is running away from the family she hates while the other has no family to hate. With the prospect of being institutionalized not too enticing and that of being together dimming, they are left with very few options. There's a degree of sense in their absurdities, even when they are ready to jump off a Church bell tower.

It's very funny and original. The tree house perched on the peak, kids ganging up against Sam and then coming to his rescue, Schwartzman's Cousin Ben, Sam getting struck by a thunder.. it is clear anything can happen in Anderson's fantasy world. He makes these fairy-tale films. I guess it's just me but it often reminded me of Prisoner of Azkaban. It must be the music sung by church choir, the kids and the cold, stormy setting. The pre-existing music chosen and the score composed by Desplat made this the best sounding film of the year thus far.

I really want to live in the world of Moonrise Kingdom. This is probably the most beautiful film about young lovers before they really start thinking about sex. There's this innocence, or the lack of it, which Anderson captures. His characters, the older ones especially, are very quirky. The film's saddest moment comes when Murray talks to McDormand and realizes she doesn't love him anymore. They are sticking together just for the sake of their children and deep down they know that that is not enough. All these broken hearts are mended in one way or the other in the life-affirming final scene atop a Church. There are plenty of characters and everybody wins! Even Edward Norton's Scout Master Ward finds love.

I don't know if children are allowed to watch this film, but I'd love for my kids to see this. I predict a great future for this film. This will go on to attain the status now held by Stand By Me and The Princess Bride. It put a wide smile on my face and I cannot recommend it enough.

Pizza (2012)

This year, Tamil cinema has seen the feature film debut of two products of the popular reality show Naalaya Iyakunar. After Balaji Mohan's successful Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi, it is ex-Software Engineer Karthik Subbaraj's turn to make a foray into the industry. The result is a surprisingly good psychological thriller, Pizza.

Michael, played by Vijay Sethupathi, is a Pizza delivery guy living with his girlfriend Anu, an aspiring horror novelist. Cutting all corners to make a living, the couple are forced to marry each other when Anu gets pregnant. A non-believer when it comes to ghosts and spirits, Michael’s moment of realisation comes when he notices his Boss’ possessed daughter. Things take a turn for worse when he goes to deliver Pizza to a house where things are not as they seem. After giving an impression of a pulpy thriller from the promos, it starts off with a grainy, handheld segment giving off vibes of a found-footage film, only to become something entirely different in the scene that follows. It convinces you of one thing, and immediately shatters your belief.

It’s hard to talk about a film like Pizza and not give away anything of importance. Even if it occasionally dabbles in clichés, the film, on the whole, is a rather well-written thriller. It is evident from the homages to Christopher Nolan, Bryan Singer and references to classic horror films including Kubrick's The Shining that the director is a pakka fanboy who grew up on a staple diet of American mind-bending thrillers. There are sufficient nods to Kamal and Rajni as well; for the first time since Aaranya Kaandam, they don't feel like throwaway references, just hoping to score a few whistles from the crowd. But most importantly, the film incorporates all these tiny elements and comes up with an entirely original plot set very well in the heart of Chennai.

The only problem with the film is that its horror elements are caricaturish and fail to scare. Thinking about it, I don't think spooking the audience was ever their intention. But if it was, then I must say they sorely failed at that. The film heavily relies on its twist that it doesn't do proper justice to the tale it is spinning inside the haunted house. The over-confident attitude that 'everything will be alright and audience will forget the dull time they had when we show them our true colors' doesn't help the film's cause. The crowd quickly became restless and were jeering out loud. Personally, I am not a fan of the ending, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the aspect that impresses most people. In its attempt to finish things off with a bang, it goes for something one would expect to see in short films made by high-school students. But I guess it is necessary to drive home the point of Karma.

Craft-wise, the film is very neat. The cinematography has to be commended. A major scene takes place inside a dark bungalow with a torch being the only source of light. Even if the direction is not taut enough to hold the audience's attention during that scene, the beautiful lighting salvages the moment. The sound design was much talked about and is pretty decent as well. Santhosh Narayanan's moody, atmospheric score is a highlight. I have become a fan of Vijay Sethupathi. After being a part of Sundarapandian, which had the best ensemble performance in a Tamil film in recent times, he is back to playing the leading man, and he does it rather well. The film rests on his performance and he manages to pull it off.

Sure, it could have been cleverer. Once the trick became clear, I had a wide smile on my face; but the exposition that followed was way too long and detailed. It went on and on, feeding the audience on every last bit of information. In spite of its see what I did there? smugness, the film more or less wins you over. The film passes through a dry patch but the final payoff more than makes up for it. It doesn't demand a second viewing but it wouldn't hurt to watch it again. Keyser Söze would be proud.

Maattrraan (2012)

For a film with such a promising first half, Maattrraan is a big disappointment. Despite being stuffed with content, the film is let down by a relentlessly overlong second act and a downright awful climax.

Suriya plays Akhilan and Vimalan, conjoined twins born to a scientist/genetic engineer Father who runs a multi-million dollar health drink company. Vimalan is the ideological son who reads works of Bharathiyaar and Marx, and talks about labour injustice. Akhilan, on the other hand, drinks, flirts and pisses in flower pots. The twins are inseparable as they are joint by the waist and share a heart, which beats for Anjali (Kajal Aggarwal). The quick success of Energion baffles the industry players and everyone is desperate to find out the secret ingredient, no matter what it takes. Trouble arrives when the twins find themselves in the midst of this.

The first act is largely entertaining. The first fight happens in an amusement park and takes place very deep into the movie. The sight of two conjoined-twins fighting off a dozen goons, clubbed with the sense of impending peril, made that one of the best sequences in the film. By that point, you root for them so much that every punch resonates emotionally. I was surprised by how moved I was around the halfway mark. I must confess I got teary eyed at one particular moment and that has almost never happened watching a Tamil film.

The film gets a few things right by sticking to a linear narrative structure, but the second half is a big chore, no matter how you look at it. There's not an ounce of suspense and everything that you see here doesn't matter at all. It becomes very evident how things are eventually going to pan out, but we are made to sit through a very long, pointless exposition. It starts taking itself too seriously, talking about world-ending consequences, and loses the good impression it managed to create. The film spends a good 90 minutes trying to fit a missing piece in the puzzle when you already see the bigger picture bright and clear.

I admired how the film was working very well within the framework of its small scale. Then out of nowhere, the crew decides to pack its bags and go to some Soviet country, because why not. One thing filmmakers don't seem to get is how audience find it hard to believe that lives of millions are in the hands of the protagonist. The direction and production value aside, Indian actors have to try harder to break the mold and appear convincingly important and capable in an international milieu. The higher the stakes, the harder it gets to pull it off. The same happened with Dasavatharam, and most recently with Thaandavam. Due to this, the entire episode taking place in Ukvania (!), in spite of being logically sound, hangs like a stump to the rest of the film.

The last song in the film, which doesn't even sound good to be honest, comes at a point where the movie's pace has sagged to its slowest and a relatively important character has died. In spite of mocking himself as a director who places a musical number right after the death of a prominent character, it is evident from this that K.V. Anand hasn't really learnt much. One more thing that bugged me was how Akhilan becomes a Judge Dredd like character, killing people off remorselessly. Don't tell me he is taking out the trash, 'cause he's not.

The final scene left much to be desired, but performance-wise, Sachin Khedekar stood out as the twin's father. Suriya has clearly put in a lot of effort and is very earnest. The person who dubbed for Kajal Aggarwal deserves a special mention. On the whole, Maattrraan is a wasted opportunity, failing to capitalise on its entertaining first act. 

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Killing Them Softly is set in a place of great significance at a very critical point of time. While the nation as a whole suffered from the Great Recession, the residents of New Orleans had it worse. After being in the eye of the costliest natural disaster in the history of America, the post-Katrina Orleanians had to rebuild their lives when unemployment was rampant and the economy was in such a bad shape. Like 9/11 before it, this particular period is likely to become fodder for many more movies. While the zeitgeisty Up In The Air focused on the immediate impact of depression on the working class Americans, Killing Them Softly brings out the plight of a significant but an under-represented industry: organized crime.

The glorious aura surrounding gangsters doesn't shine bright here, with mobsters scraping for pennies- literally nicking dollar bills meant for waitresses off restaurant tables. People are shooting off each other on the streets, and the movie doesn't even bother to slow down and take a moment to dwell over it. Like any great gangster film would tell us, the success lies in humanizing these larger than life characters. You may not know someone like them, but you believe they must exist somewhere. They take pills before they go do their job and they haggle over prices. I hate to drag it into this conversation, but unlike Pulp Fiction which hit you with quotable one-liners beat after beat after beat, characters in the world of Killing Them Softly never once come across as smartass goons. The film lets them take their own time to deliver the goods, even as they slip in and out of delirium.

I liked Scoot McNairy's character a lot. I am not one of those people who prefer their gangsters in terms of how less evil they are. I am not expecting him to change his ways.  Even if the act of killing makes him flinch, you got to do what you got to do. My problem with the film is how Gandolfini's New York Mickey did little to alter the course of the story. It was great to see my Caporegime Tony Soprano doing what he does best, but his musings about marital unhappiness and an impending jail term, while adding its two cents to the 'humanizing' jar, is almost insignificant in the scheme of things. Maybe that's the point. 

When the film so explicitly refers to the economic meltdown and the hope offered by a person who promises to fix things, I cannot help but wonder if there's a subtext I am missing. I promised myself I wouldn't talk about what others wrote in their reviews and, of late, I haven't even been reading others' before I published my own first. But I did read a few interesting ones, with one grabbing my attention as it tried to match the characters of the film with their respective entities in the American politics. The three people committing the heist represent the financial institutions which robbed the system black, all the while knowing that the blame would ultimately fall on the person in-charge of running the system, thanks to his reputation. In spite of his cynicism and utter disregard for everything Obama promises, Cogan may just be him- an enforcer and a supposed harbinger of change. Yeah, I am talking out of my ass.

Andrew Dominik's "anti-thriller" noir slowly grew on me. It also made me realize how truly great his previous film is. More thoughts after a second viewing.  

Butter (2012)

Butter is a delightful little comedy that has most of its best jokes in the trailer but still manages to make you smile throughout. It is set around a 'Mastery in Butter Sculpting' competition which is very popular in Iowa. I just found out the competition has been a staple event at the Iowa State Fair for close to a century. Veteran sculptor Bob Pickler wants out but his much feared wife Laura is in no mood to give up just yet. There's a new kid in town with a knack for sculpting and more trouble arrives in the Pickler household in the form of a stripper. What follows is a surprisingly entertaining hour of satirical humor leading to a mushy climax.    

Destiny is a foster child who lives out of a suitcase in all her homes in the hope that her real mother would turn up. She is unbelievably good at things and doesn't give herself any credit for it. Her latest foster parents are quite surprised when she decides to take up a traditionally redneck vocation. Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone play her immensely likable foster parents who suddenly add a warmth to the film, making it even more palatable. 

As a political satire, the film pits a typically God-loving, semi-racist, conspicuously Republican Laura against a young African-American kid who has a way with words. Geddit? There's a dinner table scene, which later gets sculpted into butter, that reminded me of American Beauty. I suspect that was an intended nod.

The language is wonderfully profane, with most of the quickfire curses flying out from the pretty mouths of Garner and Wilde. Comedies usually stage a huge setup around sex scenes, but Butter takes you by surprise on more than one occasion with the unlikeliest of people getting intimate with each other.

One doesn't have to look closer to see that the film has many problems. Bob hooking up with Brooke (Wilde) makes sense and the narrative flow leads up to it, but Laura doing it with her one time flame Boyd Bolton was completely out of place. I am not justifying Bob's actions and condemning Laura's; it's just that whatever she did was not to get back at Bob but to use Boyd's services and get back at Destiny. Kaitlen Pickler, played Ashley Greene, has a half-baked character and goes nowhere. She's a typical teenager who hates her family but that's not the issue. Her little experimental fling with the stripper Brooke is, shall we say, pointless. Wait, what? I cannot believe I am complaining about the hot, girl on girl action. Never mind.

Wilde is a firecracker as the stripper Brooke; she is the funniest even though her character hangs very loosely to the story. The Jackman cameo, which is what it is, felt a tad inapposite as well. Actually, most of the actors felt underutilized as they didn't get enough screen-time. It always gets problematic when kids act like grown-ups. Destiny is a cool kid and all that but the final scene, with her advising Laura, was way too cheesy, or should I say, buttery.

The film's strength is its short run-time. At a little over 80 minutes, the film opens up quick, makes you chuckle and sometimes laugh, and wraps up before you worry about its problems. It is necessary for me to address these problems but I honestly didn't care much for them. I had a lot of fun watching it.  

Thaandavam (2012)

In the film's opening moments, a series of blasts rip through Central London. A news reporter calls it “the biggest terrorist attack in UK since 9/11”. It is followed by a scene highly reminiscent of Collateral, where a Cab driver drops a ride and waits for him to return. A body falls from the building on top of a waiting car. What was supposed to be a critical moment is savagely muffled by shamelessly hoping to get a laugh out of it. It's sad how entire scenes are built around one-liners which are tragically unfunny.  The entire film is filled with moments like these where the little bit of seriousness is chucked out a window by juxtaposing it with something absurd.

I didn’t buy the whole 'Echolocation' theory. Just to be sure, I took a look at the actual videos of visually challenged people who have practiced this technique. It may help the person to walk around and live independently but the kind of things the protagonist is able to perform is simply ridiculous. Had they at least set a framework regarding the activities he can and cannot do, it would have been easier to accept this. He runs, fights, kills just like normal people. What's more unbelievable is how MI6 agents are so inept, they cannot save themselves from a blind person. 

The premise is absurd as it is, without adding the whole gimmicky 'Echolocation' concept. Gimmicky is fast becoming my favorite word to describe Tamil films. All these writers are scavenging for one interesting plot point and then build an entire film around it using the same old, hackneyed elements. So an Indian scientist invents a bomb which cannot be traced by metal detectors. He designs a Do-It-Yourself 'flowchart' so any one learns to assemble the bomb. He is soon found dead under mysterious circumstances and this flowchart goes missing. There's so much bickering about how some operative in India is planning to send the flowchart to some International terrorist organization through Led Ex courier services. I mean, hello, whatever happened to email? When a blast of this magnitude has killed over a thousand people and MI6 is apparently involved in a major cover-up, is it too much to expect the ramifications to be mentioned? 

It is about time we had movies where flashbacks, however unnecessary, were more organically infused to the narrative. I believe I am not spoiling anything as almost all of this is pretty damn evident from the trailer. At relatively important junctures, we are made to watch a story about how he met his wife. She plays an ophthalmologist but is not even able to guess what her husband’s designation could be. Why would a person form South India go and work in Delhi Police as a sub-inspector?  They were hoping for it to be cute and all that, but meh. Though I must confess I thought a couple of scenes with Anushka were the most entertaining in the entire film. But the problem is that they didn't even belong there. Apart from bringing the actual plot to a complete standstill, the back-story added little depth to his motives. Even the revenge he is seeking is out of a misplaced sense of justice. 

Vikram is deeply sincere as always. He tries to bring a lot to his performance but is let down by the preposterousness surrounding him. The pacing is very slow and there's not an ounce of thrill to be found anywhere. The audience at my screening didn't clap or whistle even once and that's something you don't see happen for a film starring such a popular actor. Truth be told, there are hardly any moments where you fear for any of the characters. Amy Jackson and Anushka were rather decent in spite of playing characters that are not the brightest of bulb in the box. I’m not even going to get into how all the characters keep running into each other in the city of London. The twists are weak and you can see them coming from miles away. The actual revenge plot wouldn't have taken more than 30 minutes of runtime. Most of the scenes meander around the women in the film trying to fall for Vikram's character. It comes down to whether the film is entertaining and it is definitely not.  

Bernie (2012)

One thing that's most fascinating about Bernie is how people are capable of looking at law and justice in a different way when the victim is a much hated person and the perpetrator is someone they love. What Bernie did was clearly wrong, even if it was committed in the heat of the moment. It was weird and a little funny to see the residents of the town trying their best to offer a convincing reason for his actions. And it's not just them, even I didn't realize the gravity of his act because I simply couldn't take anymore of what was happening on screen. The killing happened at a point where I was completely bored and wondered why this film even got made. It's not just poor Bernie suffering at Mrs. Nugent's expense; I was having a terrible time myself. Something significant had to happen and quick.

Is an autopsy conducted even when old people die? If not, Bernie could have gotten away with it very easily. After all, he's in the Embalming business. He didn't for some reason but that doesn't make him a saint, does it?  He bought time by buying the love and admiration of people living in the town. He was already very popular, but just to be sure, he kept at it. But there's no regret until he gets caught. It's good that the film looked at its protagonist in an unbiased way.

The documentary-type narrative was interesting. The film relies on these third-person accounts to drive the story forward. This one particular woman was very funny as she laughed uncontrollably while her neighbor kept swearing a lot at Mrs.Nugent. It's a small town movie where everybody knows everyone. I usually love these kind of films but Bernie didn't work that well. It's not a bad movie. It surely gets a lot better after that one incident. It's just that it's not very entertaining. I wished there was more of Matthew McConaughey. There's this one line where he mispronounces Les Miserables as "Lez Mis-Ray-Bels", which I thought was pretty funny. Shirley MacLaine plays this old lady anyone would love to hate. I kept thinking how much the lovely Miss Kubelik had changed. The fact that the film is based on a true story only helps its cause. I probably would have dismissed the story had it not taken place for real.

Saattai (2012)

I am not going to pretend like I didn't just have one of the worst times ever at the movies. I dislike the film so much I don't even feel like wasting any more time on it. Let me try my best to assess the film which has so little going for it. 

Dayalan, played by Samudirakani, is a high school physics teacher who gets transferred to a Government school which is on the verge of closure. The school's strength has declined considerably in the recent few years and results have hit an all-time low. A sense of apathy prevails among the teachers, who haven’t the slightest intention to set things right. Dayalan identifies the fundamental problems lie in the way the school is being run and offers to help. His good intentions are looked upon with pessimism by all the other teachers, with the Asst. Head Master going to the extent of calling him his sworn enemy for disturbing the status-quo. 

There’s no denying the film has good intentions; it tries to point out all the issues which plague a small town government school in India. But it fails at doing it with subtlety and comes across as tediously preachy. It very quickly overwhelms with its barrage of advises on how to understand students better. It turns Dayalan into a messiah of change by showing every other teacher in a very poor light. I hated how easily the film brings Dayalan out of the only morally-heavy sticky situation he was put in, by simply making some random teacher the culprit. 

We are fairly familiar with much of all the concerns the film raises. If the intention was to create awareness and bring some actual change, then I am afraid the film has no impact whatsoever. It is just another story of a teacher with lofty ambitions who ultimately wins the hearts of students and then some. Ultimately, the solutions it offers are either all too well known or highly romanticised. 

The only portions of the film I was personally able to relate to were the little mannerisms displayed by kids. For example, no matter how friendly a teacher is, kids never fail to pass comments about them. They don't mean any harm; it's just that they cannot help it. Another one was how kids convince themselves by calculating 'FLAMES' on the back of a note that the girl they fancy also has feelings for them. Unfortunately, such observations were few and far between. And certain scenes were too far-fetched even for a government school like this. There was too much crassness every time Tambi Ramiah showed up on screen. The way his character spits on students’ faces, bullies and beats up his own colleagues was inconceivable. For a film which tries to fake realism, elements like these unfortunately do the exact opposite.  

Watch this film if you suck as a parent/teacher and have no idea what to do with your kid/student. Watch it if you are easily amused. Watch it if you like to be yelled at. 

Arbitrage (2012)

arbitrage: noun. The simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities, commodities, or foreign exchange in different markets to profit from unequal prices.

There are some people whose life is defined by the work they do. So much so that it is hard to even imagine them considering retirement. Robert Miller is one such person. A globetrotting multimillionaire who just had his best business year and appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine, he is celebrating his 60th birthday on the eve of closing the deal of his life. He is clearly very ambitious, having established an empire out of nothing. There are two primary conflicts in his life, both of his own making. Robert lives his life just like he does his business, placing serious bets, pinning his everything on his actions. As the title suggests, he tries to balance his gains by playing the people around him. He attempts to accomplish the merger, while keeping everyone in the dark about his huge financial black-hole. As the film progresses, you realize how deep in trouble Robert is and what he is capable of to clear his name. He is basically cleaning up after his recently committed mistakes. 

Arbitrage, which couldn't have had a more suitable title, is set in a cold, high-stakes world where a wrong decision can result in losses to the tune of several hundred millions and a few lives. Working in a swanky New York office space by the day and socializing at the banquet hall of Ritz-Carlton by the night, these people's lives are filled with charity balls, tuxedos and fake smiles. This is a proper corporate thriller. It often reminded me of last year's terrific Margin Call. I had read a few parts of Ebert's review and also had an idea what the general reaction was. Everyone had noted how it was impossible for them to not root for Robert Miller. Add my name to the list of people who fell to his charm. It's not just his looks (Gere is actually playing a character two years younger than he is;) there's this genuine desperation in his actions. He apologizes a lot and always gets away.

He is really good with his wife. You can tell they are having a healthy sex life. She's what one would call the perfect 'mob wife'. She enjoys the riches, she knows what he does and she doesn't ask too many questions. He also has a European mistress because, hey, his status demands it. To keep his talent-less eye-candy happy, he splurges on her interests. His prodigal daughter and heir-apparent Brooke finds out about the financial irregularities, but never suspects her father. She looks up to him- her mentor. My other favorite character has got to be that of Jimmy Grant, played by Nate Parker. A lot depended on him with his actions having the potential to change Robert's life. When he is told that he is just a mere suspect, he retorts with, "Motherfucker, I am black!". That was quite funny. And a little sad.  

I wondered why such a good film failed to make any sort of a serious impact. It comes down to poor marketing, I guess. The film's poster is abysmal and uninviting; look at how plain boring it is. The background score is very atmospheric and had a slight tinge of The Social Network soundtrack. It is a very good film. Also, it even holds up pretty well on the second viewing.  

Charulatha (2012)

Every time an Indian film with a very novel premise comes along, we often come to know about some Asian original from which it shamelessly ripped off. I had no idea about its originality when I was watching this film. It was only when I was halfway through my review that my cynicism got the better of me. How can such a pathetically directed film lead to such an interesting turn of events? I googled and learnt that Charulatha is an official remake of a 2007 Thai film titled Alone.  Why am I not surprised.

Charulatha is a story of two conjoined sisters who are so close, they'd stay together even if they weren't stuck together by the waist. Love comes their way and a rift in their relationship follows. One of the twin dies and returns to haunt the other for failing to keep a promise. It has a very decent premise but it tries to do something it doesn't have the caliber to carry out properly- which is aspiring to be a horror film. As it painfully spends its time trying to scare us, it is unbearable to sit through.  Like many horror films, it heavily relies on loud background music and other sound effects to spook the audience. While even the worst films belonging to the genre manage to successfully scare us at least once in its run time, Charulatha fails miserably. It takes all the quintessential elements of the genre but does nothing new with it. There's one scene where Charu's in a bathtub and gets attacked by the spirit, another where she's alone in a lift, one with her walking around the house looking for her pet dog.. these are the scenes which we have seen many a times already. Forget novelty, it doesn't even succeed at replicating them well.

It's hard to look at horror films the same way after watching this year's mind-bending entertainer The Cabin in the Woods. That film managed to put every single horror film into context. This makes many of my qualms with Charulatha insignificant, as I have answers to all my questions but I am still mad at their usage of many genre-based cliches. For example, it makes no sense for Charu to continue to stay in that tacky house of hers after knowing very well that it is haunted. It is not even as if she is trapped there. She goes about her life but keeps returning to the damned place by the night. There's a fat kid and his fat sister who are the caretakers of the house who add no value to the story. Their attempts at humor fail miserably, further worsening the film's plight. Strangely there aren't any deaths in the film, though I kept hoping something would get to the fat kid. 

On one side, there's a psychiatrist trying to help rationalizing even the most unusual events. Then there's a benevolent black magician who goes around catching spirits with Deshi Deshi Basara Basara playing in the background. There's a subplot where he fetches a sacred stem from a tree-top which makes those Amman serials on Sun TV look as good as Rosemary's Baby. Everything that happens till this point is so atrocious that many people at my screening walked out. But then something happened near the end which put all the events into a context. It even makes you like the film a little bit, yet it doesn't change the fact that I just suffered for most of the runtime.

Them being Siamese twins is itself a mere gimmick. They did not appear to be sharing any vital organs and splitting them apart wouldn't have been fatal in any way. Yet the girls absurdly suffer being stuck together for more than twenty years! Charu's Mom is bed-ridden throughout and has nothing much to do except breathe heavily every time someone comes to visit her. She is visibly bored and happily dozes off at the end of all her scenes. Don't even get me started about the boyfriend.

Charulatha is not worth your money and time. Pick up a DVD of the Thai original instead.