My 2023 list of interesting TV shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime

----------------------------------- NETFLIX SHOWS ---------------------------------------

Bodies turns detective work into a time-traveling comedy, where four sleuths from different time periods in London team up to solve the ultimate whodunit. It satisfies my time traveling craving for the season.

The Fall of the House of Usher : The series is a wild, haunted romp that turns Poe's classic tale into a dysfunctional sitcom-meets-horror mashup.  It's Netflix's way of turning horror into a comedy of errors, making Usher's fall a laugh-out-loud tumble into the absurdly supernatural.

Guns and Gulabs Season 1 is like a crazy curry of '90s nostalgia and gangster drama. The cast is doing their thing, living on their own terms, and you can't help but be part of the ride. Raj and DK deserve a shout-out for the killer screenplay.

Kohrra is not your typical murder mystery. With knock-out performances and a screenplay that packs a punch, it's like peeling back layers of a mystery onion. Punjab's not-so-pretty realities like drugs, forced NRI marriages, and a sprinkle of patriarchy drama form the background of the story. The characters are a hot mess in the best way, fighting personal battles while solving the big mystery.

Beef: Starting from a road rage incident which then leads off to a cascading series of escalating incidents, 'Beef' explores the human condition with a raw, relatable touch. It is a gripping drama about two people living parallel lives in different circumstances. Money, status, and mental health are key topics covered in this series with a unique Asian American cultural twist

MH370 The Plane That Disappeared: The series navigates the complexities surrounding the disappearance of Flight MH370, shedding light on the emotional toll on families, the relentless search efforts, and the lingering questions that resonate globally. It's a poignant blend of investigative journalism and human narratives and expertly steers clear of sensationalism to present a respectful examination of an enduring mystery.

Cunk on Earth:  A mockumentary gem that simultaneously pokes fun at and revels in the absurdities of our historical narrative. The comedic timing is impeccable, and Cunk's deadpan delivery (Diane Morgan at her comedic best) makes even the most mundane historical tidbits downright hilarious.

-------------------------- AMAZON PRIME SHOWS -----------------------------------

Dahaad Season 1: Dahaad is a stellar crime thriller set in the heart of rural Rajasthan, India, exposing the deep-seated biases and injustices ingrained in the region's culture. Sonakshi Sinha shines as Anjali, a determined police officer challenging societal norms. It is based on a true story, the series keeps viewers on the edge, skillfully unveiling the twisted mind of a serial killer.

The Power Season 1 is  a thought-provoking exploration of societal upheaval in a world where women command electric abilities. The writing strikes a balance between drama and the weighty implications of a world transformed. Strap in for a journey where the real shocks aren't just in the superpowers but in the societal currents they unleash. The show adeptly navigates the complexities of power dynamics, instigating a paradigm shift that is both electrifying and deeply reflective.

Wilderness Season 1: Liv and Will, the seemingly golden couple, take their British charm to the Big Apple. The couple's cross-country trip to iron out wrinkles in their relationship turns into a wild rollercoaster of emotions, and suddenly, that dream holiday takes a detour into a living nightmare. 'Wilderness' isn't just a twisted love story; it's a journey into the chaos of relationships, proving that even the best-laid plans can go off the rails. Jenna Coleman is captivating and capitalizes on a well written female lead character, but most of other characters didn't the same kind of attention from the screenwriters.

Vadhandhi : The Fable of Veloni:  Eight captivating episodes centering around the mysterious death of a young woman, setting off a web of deception. SJ Suryah, in the role of Sub Inspector Vivek, skillfully navigates the intricate investigation, revealing layers of lies and deceit. Sanjana, portraying the beautifully haunting Velonie, adds a magnetic charm to the narrative, owning her role effortlessly. Vadandhi may have its flaws, but it's a compelling watch, showcasing the creators' mastery in crafting suspenseful narratives.

Hush Hush Season 1, with its women-centric vibe, shines a spotlight on the talents of Juhi Chawla, Karishma Tanna, Shahana Goswami, Kritika Kamra, Soha Ali Khan and Ayesha Jhulka. The ensemble cast plays a crucial role in weaving a narrative that delves into friendship, secrets, and the highs and lows of contemporary women's experiences. 

When I look at my Amazon Prime picks I realize that these are all series which are either women-centric or has strong lead characters who are women.  Prime also has more quality international content which is not just Korean.

BTW this is how a blog post would look if it was written by generative AI, like this post was :-) Will be switching back to the human mode in the new year. Happy 2024!

Writing Credits for this post : ChatGPT 3.5, the free version.

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Best shows on Amazon Prime & Netflix: My 2021 List

This is my customary end of the year list post. I usually do best books, but this year I am going to the best TV shows I have watched this year. Some of them were even adapted from books! That gives us one more reason not to read books, we can wait and watch when the show comes out.

My discovery of the year or my best TV show award goes to The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Prime. Here is the list of my top 10 tv shows of the year in no particular order, except for the one in the first place.

First Place - The Man in the High Castle (Prime): I like history. I like time travel and alternate universes. I don't really like science or fantasy fiction. But I am starting to like Philip K. Dick more than ever. He is the only science fiction writer I have ever enjoyed reading. 

The Man in the High Castle is history, time travel and alternate universes baked fresh from the kiln fired up right after WWII. It is based on Philip K. Dick's book of the same name. I started reading the book after I finished the show which is on Amazon Prime. The show is told from a different perspective than the book. The creators and the actors have kept it engaging, charismatic and it leaves us wanting more. Incredible performances all around. I am particularly impressed by Rufus Sewell who steals the show.  A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. If you are a history buff with a weakness for alternate universes, this one is for you.

The Underground Railroad (Prime): What if the underground railroad was a real subterranean railroad transporting slaves to the free lands up north ? Based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer winning novel of the same name, Barry Jenkins' poem of a show is a hard-hitting portrayal of the ambitious and risky flights to freedom undertaken by slaves from southern plantations in the mid 1800s. 

Them (Prime): Amazon Prime has more authentic shows about black people than Netflix. While it has garnered many negative reviews from critics, I liked the period aspect of Them and how it shows a family of four who moved to Compton from the Carolinas battle the duel evils of racism and supernatural evil. Are they one and the same?

Patriot (Prime) : If Wes Anderson was making TV shows, Patriot might be it. Maybe writer-director Steven Conrad is Anderson's brother from another mother. Patriot is about a spy, who cannot be identified as a spy, whose day job is at an industrial piping company in Milwaukee, who also moonlights as a folk singer as an antidote to his stress - the level of which would have killed any other person. It is serious and comedic at the same time. It also reminds me of Asian black comedy crime dramas where periods of silence are abruptly offset by loud action, then all goes quiet again in the next minute and the protagonist carries on with whatever mundane daily task he might have been doing - like sharpening a pencil or reading a bus time table.

The Serpent (Netflix): The exquisitely shot, directed, edited and acted crime drama, The Serpent, follows the notorious criminal and serial killer Charles Sobharaj. Sobharaj was our version of Clyde, of the Bonnie and Clyde fame. There were several Bonnies in the real Sobharaj's story, although in this TV version, Bonnie is Marie-Andrée Leclerc . When I was a kid back in India, Sobharaj was captured and jailed for a brief time in Tihar jail from where he escaped using one of his ingenious schemes. It was great to see re-creation of sixties and seventies, going down the hippy trail in Asia on the tail of a notoriously manipulative psychopath. The production design and casting are on point.

Kim's Convenience, Seasons 1-4 (Netflix) : The best Korean show ever to be made by North Americans. Set in Toronto, it tells the story of a four member Korean-Canadian family who owns a convenience store. While it is light, natural, funny and this is the most realistic portraiture of an Asian immigrant family I have seen on TV.

Harlan Coben series on Netflix: For quick binge-able crime drama, just like the Harlan Coben paperbacks you might pickup from the airport kiosk, the TV shows adapted from Coben's novels are eminently binge-able, no matter what the language. I started with Safe, proceeded to The Five and The Stranger - all produced in U.K, before moving on to The Innocent (Spanish), Gone for Good (French) and The Woods (Polish.) 

Midnight Mass (Netflix) : Midnight Mass is an atmospheric series. It gives me the vibes of Netflix's show Messiah, a favorite of mine which Netflix canceled after the first season. Maybe due to religiosity, which is a cornerstone for both the shows. If you are in the mood for some dark moody horror with depressive undertones that rounds things off with a fiery apocalypse, too specific I know, then you might want to give Midnight Mass a try.

You (Netflix): How does a serial killer who is a book store manager ingratiate himself into high society and find his prey? Watch YOU for the answer. Based on the books by Caroline Kepnes, the protagonist could be called Dexter with a literary bend of mind. Addictive.

If I Hadn't Met You (Netflix): I will take time travel and alternate universes in any language. Si no t'hagues conegut is a Spanish Catalan series, a love story in disguise of a time traveling trope - that's what I fell for.

Other honorable mentions because I am too lazy to write.

The rest of my best on Amazon Prime you have probably not watched, yet.

• Hotel Beau Sejour (Belgium) : Supernatural crime drama with the protagonist murdered, caught up in an after-life limbo, trying to find her killer.
• Unforgotten (U.K) :  British crime series starring Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhasker.
• The Living & The Dead (U.K): Victorian era super natural of a farmer-scientist trying to prove the existence of after-life, starring Colin Morgan.
• Intruders (BBC America) : Stars Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown before she was famous. Supernatural.

The rest of my best on Netflix you might have watched already.

• Delhi Crime (India): Best Indian crime drama ever.
• Clickbait : Crime thriller set in the U.S, but Melbourne stands in for U.S west coast.
• The Chair : If you have always wondered what happens in academia and what do these professors, especially the ones who teach languages do, The Chair is a quick and easy watch.
• How To Sell Drugs Online Fast Seasons 1-3 (Germany) : Real life Breaking Bad about the true story of a teenage German entrepreneur. Engaging and funny.
• Never Have I Ever Seasons  1-2 : Teen drama. Mindy Kaling takes a look at the troubles and travails of teenage angst, through her protagonist, first generation Indian American teen, Devi Vishwakumar

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Sardar Udham

To narrate the biography of a freedom fighter without sounding jingoistic is not an easy undertaking. Shoojit Sircar's Sardar Udham is an understated piece of film making we don't see much in Bollywood in these days of Bell Bottoms, Kesaris and Bhujs.

Vicky Kaushal as Sardar Udham

The casting is spectacular.  Vicky Kaushal is becoming the thinking person's hero,  who straddles the line of commercial Bollywood and alternate cinema with the ease of a seasoned tight rope walker. From essaying a teen to a forty year old, the effortlessness which with Vicky gets into the skin of the character in Sardar Udham is admirable. Did I say I like Vicky Kaushal? He is so quintessentially Indian - could be from North , South,  East or West of India.

The production design leaves no room for finding historical mis-steps. The British characters are not monsters, the subjugated Indian patriots are not embodiment of morality and virtue, all are faulty humans, victims of their circumstances.The cinematography is amazing, it has one of the best depictions of Jalianwalla Bagh massacre ever shown on screen. Even in the imagery representing brutal slaughter of hundreds of people, India is painted with a breathtakingly poignant brush with striking colors.

The movie is a bit of a slow burn, especially for someone like me whose fingers are glued to the forward button on the remote. But I understand,  Sardar Udham is like an episode of Oliver Stone's Untold History of United States India, you think know the story,  but you don't, so you will yourself to watch a skillfully crafted old school film making, word by word, moment by moment as history unfolds. 

Ram Muhammad Singh Azad or the real Udham Singh in British custody

An ordinary Indian guy plans and prepares (flying solo for the most part) for his revenge, on a representative of the British Empire. It takes him 20 years to complete his mission of eliminating his target, his revenge for killing 1500 civilians in his hometown of Amritsar. The British never formally apologized for the massacre, but expressed 'regret' on the 100th anniversary of the event in 2019.

 

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Supernatural, Paranormal or Time Travel TV shows : Best of Netflix & Amazon Prime 2021

su·per·nat·u·ral  /ˌso͞opərˈnaCH(ə)rəl/

Learn to pronounce

adjective

1. (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

Beyond scientific understanding, defying logic and laws of nature - these two attributes give unlimited freedom to story writers. While I pooh-pooh at the fantasy genre and couldn't care less about the American construct of zombies or their living relatives vampires or werewolves, I cannot explain why I am drawn to the type of supernatural / science fiction shows I have listed below, but I am.

Tunnel (Netflix US): Tunnel was my introduction to K-Drama. I still consider it as my favorite. It is a police procedural about the hunt for a serial murderer with a time traveling detective thrown in. All the Korean stars are young and immaculate - must be the reason why Korean skin care products are a rage everywhere. They are easy on the eyes and glide the narrative along a smooth-as-butter path, even when it is along a dark and ominous abandoned tunnel. Highly engaging and binge-able.

Signal (Netflix US): I was looking for Korean shows to watch after Tunnel when I chanced upon Signal. I almost gave up after the first couple of episodes. But I am glad I did not. Signal get better and stays engaging for the rest of the episodes. While no-one really time travels, there is real time communication happening between past and the present through an old radio.

Dark (Netflix US): Dark is like the German cousin of Stranger Things, where time is the upside-down. It checks my time travel subject box. But the story went into the Matryoshka doll zone in Season 3 - nesting of characters never before seen in the space-time continuum we inhabit. I had to quit watching after a couple of episodes in Season 3. Still Season 1 and 2  are worth the watch and many die-hard fans, especially in millennial age group can't sing enough praises of the series.

Equinox (Netflix US): From Denmark, Equinox feels like Frozen meets Stranger Things, played out on a darker, adult canvas. It starts with an incident where 21 high school graduates go missing, never to be found again and progresses through a sister's search for the truth behind the disappearance of her sibling.

The Haunting of the Hillhouse (Netflix US):: This is one of those rare instances where the show/movie was better than the book it was based on. I went to sleep trying to read Shirley Jackson's original. Although I did finish it almost succeeded in driving me off ghost stories, usually one of my favorite subjects to read, altogether. Unlike in the book where the people who spend time at the Hillhouse are a group of strangers, in the TV adaptation it is a family - that change improves the narrative. If you are looking for a spine-chilling ghost story to scare the living day lights out of you, look no further, you have arrived at your destination.

The Haunting of Bly Manor (Netflix US): This show is a follow up to The Haunting of Hillhouse, but it is not half as good, not enough spine-tingling qualities and not very scary ghosts. It is more of a gothic romance than a ghost story, if you ask me.

Glitch (Netflix US): Ghosts or the living dead (who are not zombies, not blood-thirsty) who have time traveled to reach the present day. Glitch is Australian for highly binge-able. More detailed review here.

The OA (Netflix US): The first season was addictive with cross-dimensional travel, life after death and blind girls gaining sight. The second season is kind of weird and I am not sure what the producers where trying to do, but then Netflix canceled the show after Season 2. The OA was where I first came across Kingsley Ben-Adir.

Erased (Netflix US): A one season Japanese TV show based on a popular thriller manga series Erased has the protagonist Satori Fujinuma traveling back in time to save some of his elementary school friends. It is a quick and compelling watch if you don't mind watching shows with subtitles.

Intruders (Amazon Prime): Produced for BBC America, you can see a young Millie Bobbie Brown in this paranormal series about returning souls. Ms. Brown is quite an acting powerhouse. The series does have many edge-of-your-seat moments and if you can not get lost in the logistics and timing of soul transfers and mummification is a gripping mini series. 

The Living and the Dead (Amazon Prime): English ghosts in the turn of the (20th) century English countryside in a TV show with excellent production quality - that is The Living and the Dead. During the years 1880s to the First World War, one of the most happening fields was psychoanalysis. All the cool kids were psychoanalytical theorists or psychologists like Freud, Jung, Karl Abraham and the protagonist of the series, Nathan Appleby. Is it schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder or real ghosts from the future and the past?

Truth Seekers (Amazon Prime) : If you love the quirky British duo Nick Frost - Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, The World's End & Hot Fuzz) who usually have been showcasing their talents in movie-dom only, this supernatural ghost buster TV show is their first foray into TV land. If you want a show that is warm, fuzzy, spooky and very British, try Truth Seekers.

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One Night in Miami & The Two Killings of Sam Cooke

All the four paths would diverge after that One Night In Miami. Two will be cut shot prematurely. Two will go on making their contributions to the world of sports and entertainment. It is the two who got snuffed out way before their time, their unfinished stories that well up in my throat. Like Sam Cooke’s last song which was released after his untimely death, we are waiting, we are still waiting…

It's been a long
A long time coming
But I know, a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will

One Night in Miami is what Bob Seger might have been thinking about (well not really, the unromantic in me is taking off on an imaginary scenic route here) when he wrote, “We got tonite, who needs tomorrow. We got tonite baby, why don’t you stay?” Stay they did, the coolest gang of bros who might have ever hung out together in the history of menkind – Malcolm X, Cassius Clay soon to be Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown at a Negro hotel in Miami, on the night of 25^th Feb 1964.

More than three fourths of the movie happens in a hotel room the four friends get together. It makes sense when it is adapted from a play and the occasion calls for it. The four men briefly spend some time on the hotel rooftop and Ali & Cooke make a short stop at a liquor store, but the rest of the time the conversation between the four men happen entirely in the hotel room. An entire movie centered around the dialog four people are having in one room reminded me a bit of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but the similarity ends there.

To write meaningful dialog without taking sides and keeping the audience attention unwavering without any change in background scenery is quite a challenge. Shout out to Kemp Powers who wrote the original play and his debut movie screenplay adaptation. It is also the feature debut for the director Regina King. She has absolutely nailed it. Along with Powers’ powerful screenplay, she has received tremendous support from the crew of four amazing actors who play the four historical figures – Kingley Ben-Adir (Malcolm X), Leslie Odom Jr. (Sam Cooke), Aldis Hodge (Jim Brown) and Eli Goree (Ali) whose paths cross one night in a hotel room in Miami.

It is such a personal moment (or a few hours) for these four guys, but this serendipitous meeting is also a watershed moment in history. The morning after the meeting Cassius Clay confirms that he is joining the Nation of Islam and he changes his name to Muhammad Ali a week after. Malcolm X would quit the Nation of Islam a week after this meeting and make a trip to Mecca, Middle East and African countries to understand more about Islam and get international support and exposure to the Civil Rights Movement. Malcolm X would be assassinated and Sam Cooke would be shot dead before the first anniversary of this meeting. Ali would go on to become one of the greatest sportsmen in history and Jim Brown would quit football for Hollywood after being named NFL’s MVP for the third time in 1966.

To read more about what happened after that One Night in Miami, here is a BBC article.

After One Night in Miami, I took a peak into Sam Cooke’s life in Netflix’s documentary – The Two Killings of Sam Cooke. It is less of a crime investigation piece and more of a biography of Cooke through the eyes and words of the people who knew him and his music. Like many black musicians at the time he broke into the popular music scene via gospel music then crossed over to the devil's music - pop music and rock & roll.

In One Night in Miami we see Malcolm X exhorting Sam Cooke to take the activist route, considering he had a platform that people listened to - his songs and music. Although the movie gives the viewer the impression that Sam Cooke was not much of an activist, he was in fact at the time risking his career with his activism and earning wrath of big time record companies like RCA. If he had lived we would have an African-American Elvis, the guy had music, looks, leadership and charisma. In an alternate reality where Malcolm X and Sam Cooke could've lived on, I wonder how the world would've looked like? Those two men had so much unfinished business to take care of.😞

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25 Best Indian Films on Amazon Prime : Summer 2019 List

Amazon Prime has stepped up its game to woo the global Indian audience. Prime is pushing out many Indian movies (all languages) at the same time as their DVD releases and is also beefing up its collection of older Indian movies. This could be a real blow to the pirates.

Indian movie industry - Bollwood together with the regional movie hubs is the largest producer of movies in the world. With the world's largest movie going public, third largest in terms of ticket sales revenue (blame/thank the lowest movie ticket prices in the world) and a huge diaspora spread across the globe, no wonder Amazon is focusing on tapping the Indian audience market.

I have made a list of post-2000s Indian movies which I consider are some of the best Indian movies available on Amazon Prime as of July 2019. I watch movies in four languages mainly as these are the ones I can understand without subtitles, so the movies in these four languages - Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu make up the bulk of my list. I have watched every one of films in the list below and deem them immensely watchable.

Virus, Malayalam film by Aashiq Abu (2019) is a fictionalized account based on true events about the outbreak of Nipah virus epidemic in the southern Indian state of Kerala. (Language: Malayalam)

Kumbalangi Nights (2019) a story about a dysfunctional family of four brothers in a small island hamlet of Kumbalangi, Kerala.(Language: Malayalam)

Premam by Alphonse Puthren (2016)is a film exploring the phases of love in the life of a young man, one of the highest grossing Malayalam movies of all time. (Language: Malayalam)

Bangalore Days (2014) : The original Malayalam hit about the lives of three cousins in the city of Bangalore, directed by Anjali Menon. It went on to be remade in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi (under production.) (Language: Malayalam)

Sapthamashree Thaskara (2014) : A Malayalam heist movie about seven thieves directed by Anil Radhakrishna Menon. (Language : Malayalam)

Dil Chahta Hai : A bro movie, a Bollywood comedy about 4 young men, could be seen as the part one of the next movie in the list, Dil Dhadkane Do (Language: Hindi)

Dil Dhadkane Do (2015): A Bollywood road trip movie by Zoya Akhtar. A good intro to contemporary Bollywood. (Language: Hindi)

Gully Boy : India's version of Eminem's 8 Mile. (Language: Hindi)

3 Idiots (2009): A Bollywood comedy. (Language: Hindi)

Chak De India (2007): A well directed and scripted Bollywood sports movie. The only big name in this movie is Bollywood super star, Shahrukh Khan in a very different-than-his-usual avatar. (Language: Hindi)

Kapoor and Sons (2016): Family drama directed by Shakun Batra (Language: Hindi)

Newton (2017) : A little peak into the working of how elections are run in the world's largest democracy through the eyes of Newton Kumar, a feature film directed by Amit Masurkar. (Language: Hindi)

Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009) : India's Office Space? Directed by Shimit Amin, starring Ranbir Kapoor. (Language: Hindi)

Karthik Calling Karthik (2009) : Psychological drama set in the world of young urban Indian professionals. Not your usual Bollywood movie, infinitely entertaining nevertheless. (Language: Hindi)

A Death in Gunj (2018) : A haunting coming of age story directed by Konkona Sen Sharma. (Language: Hindi)

Talaash (2016) : An excellent Bollywood psychological thriller with top name actors, directed by Reema Kagti. (Language: Hindi)

October (2018): A beautifully melancholic movie about young love, life, loss and acceptance. (Language: Hindi)

Alaipayuthey (2000) : A Tamil romantic drama directed by Maniratnam (Language: Tamil)

Dhruvangal Pathinaru (2016): An offbeat suspense thriller directed by Karthick Naren.(Language: Tamil)

Peranbu (2019): A brilliant film exploring the relationship between a father and his grown-up, disabled daughter. (Language: Tamil)

Pariyeram Perumal B.A B.L (2018): A young man's life in rural TamilNadu as he navigates a caste-stratified society.(Language: Tamil)

Arjun Reddy (2017):Self titled movie about a sexist alpha male character. Was a huge hit in Telugu, remade in Bollywood, a landslide blockbuster there as well. Such movies make you realize that entertainment  has to cater to all types of audience. (Language: Telugu)

Fida (2017): A simple love story, if you want to see a typical South Indian entertainer, this is a good one. (Language: Telugu)

Mahanati (2018) : A biopic about the first South Indian female super star - Savitri. (Language: Telugu)

The Japanese Wife (2018) : Directed by the acclaimed directed Aparna Sen, a beautiful cross-cultural love story.(Language : Bengali)

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Brad's Status

It faintly felt like a male version of Eat Pray Love. Instead of traipsing all over the globe to find meaning, thoughts and prayers, we have greying-at-the-temples Ben Stiller staring his mid-life crisis in the face, in puritan Boston. The male version is a lot less shallow and lot more relate-able (even for women like me.)

Unlike the stereotypical male crises that happen at this age there are no red sports cars or barely-twenty-year-old blondes involved. The hero (Brad, played by Stiller) is seen by his son's side while the high-schooler navigates his Ivy League college interviews. The kid seems chill and extremely well-behaved whereas the Dad is broody and mulling over his self-worth. Together they make a quiet pair in a quiet movie which does not offer or proffer to offer the viewer any instantaneous self-help solutions at the end.

In order to counter-balance the fifty year old's self indulgent voice-overs questioning his self-esteem, the narrative introduces a virtuous young millennial - Ananya, with roots in the third world. Of course I know these third-worlders (I live inside the head of one), the kind who have never really encountered poverty or discrimination, but could blurt out statistics like how an entire family of fellow third worlders in Delhi survive on a dollar a day budget or how their grand-father walked 26.2 miles to school each day. So we have Ananya, a high school friend of Brad's son deployed to put Brad in his place by reminding him that even at his age he still thinks the world is made for him. How very childish of him. The film-makers understand a lot of Brad's worries are trivial and frivolous. Through Ananya they let us know that they acknowledge and have duly noted it. But a fifty year old with low self esteem behaves in a certain way, there is no helping it, nor are there any answers to it.

This movie can be appreciated if you are over a certain age. The way I look at it, I am cresting that hill or 'am over that hill by now (depending on the camera angle) - so I could understand what the movie is trying to tell. Not many reviewers could. I would blame it on their later arrival on terra-firma, but be patient, you will get there too.

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