Rushdie’s book rambles along with digressions which may seem irritating. But where he doesn’t make mistake is creating the dreamlike feel with allegories and parallels. It is a book which is studied at the master’s level in literature so does have importance.
Capturing the epic essence of this book, full with crazy beauty of it’s prose and the turmoil faced by the protagonist Saleem is challenging. Deepa Mehta fails there. A cast which is super talented also goes waste somewhere.
We never really feel the importance of the events shown in the movie from the wars, insurgencies to the emergencies. And what a slap on the face of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Is she just a caricature?
I watched this movie along with several foreigners and I wanted to see more than Slumdog Millionaire. What was this movie made for?
It fails to even capture Rushdie even though it has the Deepa Mehta signature comic elements. Shahana Goswami as Amina gets some canvas for her acting and she does justice to it. Most other actors are wasted. I have stayed in the south for long and know what Shriya Saran means there. I wish there was more of her. Soha Ali Khan somehow looked like a beautiful Saif. Darsheel Safary as the young Saleem is good. Siddharth’s Shiva fails to make any impact.
Midnight’s Children is as much a tale of history and nationhood as it is of a person. The palpability which the author tried to bring to India and the events that affected it is missing fogged by melodrama in the movie.
In the end it was more like much ado about nothing. Many will even say it’s a loser’s tale of a man who got swapped at birth and got riches thrown on him not to mention his strange gift and yet he does nothing. He is a b@stard who stays alive with a b@stard as his son. Is this what MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN was about?
The movie however has some natural and good kissing scenes where again the women do more justice to the scenes.
Also I do not think I am wrong since I am very angry with the Censors. Please do watch the movie and know what is actually bad and misguided cinema.