Reviews

... but it does borrow very heavily in one part of the story (last quarter) from Peter Weir's 1990 romantic comedy "Green Card", starring Andie McDowell and Gerard Depardieu (it was the French Depardieu's first film in English). Yet even there, this film manages to wrench clear plagiarism into a recognizably Indian sensibility.

Because "Ramji Londonwaley" is so long, it has the flexibility to deal with a number of subplots that "Green Card" never touches, as well.

My teenagers and I enjoyed "Ramji". It was very different from the Chopra/Johar/Khan extravaganzas, clearly on a smaller budget, and – as someone above pointed out – Ramji is obviously in the hero mold, though I doubt the extensive use of a gym!

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS! First, I'm not Indian (my ancestors emigrated to the US from northern Europe), but I love Indian films. Having been impressed by both "Lagaan" and "Swades", I simply had to see "Jodhaa Akbar". I drove two hours to see it at a theater near Washington DC, Friday evening, February 15, where the film was subtitled in English.

Other people have used the word "opulent" to describe this movie. Yes, it certainly is opulent. Costumes, jewelry (some of the principals' jewelry is genuine), furnishings . . . tents, swords, armor . . . all the large animals used – yes, it is opulent and fabulous and impressive.

But anyone with the right finances can put together a glossy surface. Ashutosh Gowariker, however, has made a film with a great deal more than the superficial.

First, the stars. Hrithik Roshan is, in this generation, the only actor who could present such a commanding and brilliantly complex Julaluddin Muhammad Akbar. From his proud and confident stature, to the modulation of voice and eyes, the steadiness of his gaze, the occasional quirk of an amused smile . . . to the controlled rage of an emperor betrayed, or the desperate fight-for-life as he individually battles his sister's husband in the dirt – it's truly a tour de force performance.

Yet while Ashwariya Rai Bachchan has a great deal of natural beauty and magnetism, and does a perfectly decent job with her role of Jodhaa, I wish we could see more of her heart in her eyes. I've heard she's no slouch, she works hard while on set . . . but part of an actor's task is to delve inside, and she seems afraid to let herself go long enough to experience either extreme darkness or unbelievable light.

The supporting actors are wonderful, especially in such roles as Akbar's controlling wet nurse (never underestimate the woman who nurtured a child from her breast), Jodhaa's father, and her cousin.

The big scenes, those of battle, of the emperor revered – those call for a director to act as a military general, and Gowariker does a fantastic job with them.

It's in the smaller scenes, though, those that call for intimacy and subtly revealed emotions, that this film captures more than the big-ticket imagination.

There's a wonderful scene between Akbar, his emotionally-distant mother and his wet nurse (the latter wields enormous power at court), where we expect that the wet nurse (who's been anti-Jodhaa from the start) will again triumph, using Akbar's love for her against him. (In an earlier scene, he's wept at her knee the way he did when five years old, one imagines.) One verbal slip, though, and the emperor, astonished, shifts and asserts his power ("Don't speak to my mother that way!"), leading to the wet nurse's downfall.

The scenes between Akbar and Jodhaa are lightly romantic, tentative, as though from either side of a great cultural/religious abyss they yearn to understand each other. In one scene, he hears her song of prayer and goes to find her. She's praying to Krishna, and when he surprises her, she rises. She expects him to respond, but he's a bit confused, he doesn't know the forms. Finally she whispers "vermilion!", and only then does he act.

In another lovely scene, she's practiced her new calligraphy, and asks him to read what she's written. He must admit he cannot – time on the battlefield meant no time for book-learning. Would she read it to him? She's reluctant. Why? She doesn't want to "take her husband's name", and then we understand – in learning a new skill, the first words she's chosen are Julaluddin Muhammad Akbar. It's an enormous compliment, and his eyes show he understands.

As an American, I don't have the same interest in a movie's songs as if I lived in India (they haven't been played for weeks, here!), but I agree with others that "Azeem o Shaan Shahenshah" is unforgettable both in its power and grandeur (and how did Hrithik sit on his shins for the hours it must have taken to film this extravaganza?). It comes near the mid-point of the movie, and I have to admit that I briefly wondered how Gowariker would top that magnificent scene for another 90 minutes.

He does.

It's a tribute to this movie that for most of it, I was fascinated. Perhaps it was because I knew little of 16th century India. I think, though, it was because "Jodhaa Akbar" is a new classic. I haven't yet read Indian reviews (Times of India, for example), as I wanted to write without being influenced. I hope, however, that Indian movie critics have praised this film. It deserves it.

Even if they haven't, do see it on the big screen, where its majesty and intimacy are both well-served.

Can't believe all the negative reviews! I found this movie quite funny, despite having experienced infertility years -- and several children -- ago. But do NOT watch this film if you're desperately trying to conceive, there will be much pain and frustration in it for you.

If, however, you're blissfully unconcerned with causing conception, then do rent it. Hugh Laurie is terrific, he gives his character such humanity . .. and incidentally has one of my favorite lines ever: as Sam trots off to give a first-time sperm sample, his angry boss shouts, 'W****r!'. Sam, seemingly truly puzzled: 'How did YOU know?' Joely Richardson is fine, lovely, and gets to show her bottom in a fetching hospital-gown turn. She also displays the many facets of a pregnancy wannabe, the frustration, confusion, monomania, and quite visceral anger over her body's refusal to cooperate now that she's old enough and mature enough to be responsible for a child -- when 15-year-olds have no problem conceiving.

The co-stars never quite steal the show, but they come close. Emma Thompson in dreadlocks? Yes! Joanna Lumley, tart as usual. Rowan Atkinson with a brilliant yet believable gynecologist take-off, and Tom Hollander, whom I had always seen as a good-friend (or is he?) type, in an outrageous performance complete with goatee and Glaswegian accent. Then there's Matthew Macfadyen (pre-Pride and Prejudice): acerbic, clueless and downright hilarious.

'Maybe Baby' (its title song sung by McCartney) is definitely worth a looksee. Put it on your queue.

** Spoilers**

The other reviews have hit all the important high points. This is, indeed, a lovingly filmed story, with lots to reflect on in the difference that social class made -- just after WWI -- in England. (And still does; see Michael Apted's Up films: 7Up, 14Up, 21Up, and so on.) The acting is superb, the relations between characters believable (catch Mellors's mother criticizing him as she hangs his clean laundry to dry), and although the ending is not as the book's, it's much more satisfying.

A reviewer below wonders why Mellors's face isn't shown during lovemaking. The whole point of the book, and the movie, is to show how this relationship, and her infidelity, is affecting Connie. It's not just that she's unfaithful -- she's unfaithful with a man `not our class, dear', which was a social sin greater than any dalliance. And as to their doing it `Greek' -- I perceive what's portrayed is simply rear-entry, like most mammals, what Lawrence referred to as `à l'italien'.

It's fascinating to recognize that Sean Bean a few years after this series worked in Lord of the Rings -- because both Tolkien and Lawrence wrote, in very different ways, of the contrast between the natural world and the mechanical world. Wragby Hall, where the Chatterleys live (because his older brother was killed in WWI, Sir Clifford has inherited the title and the place, though he has been paralyzed -- but not, we're led to believe by Mrs. Bolton, who cares for him, quite so paralyzed as to make some kind of intercourse with Connie impossible...if only he would want it) -- Wragby Hall is beautiful, but stony and cold. Mellors's cottage is small, dark, intimate. When Connie visits him there for the first time, flowers he's picked wait for her on the table. The gorgeous woods, where most of the Connie/Mellors relationship lies, are green, leafy, full of life -- and the contrast to the mining town Mellors came from and returns to, black and grim, is cruel. At one point Sir Clifford, trying to break a miners' strike, threatens to go down into the mine -- presaging the flight down into Tolkien's vision of Saruman's pit, where weapons of war are crafted and birthed.

Hilda, Connie's sister, totally disapproves of the illicit relationship and is taken aback when Mellors calls himself her brother-in-law. `Far from it, I assure you!' she retorts, scandalized. Yet Mellors means that he is married to Connie by nature -- and that is far more powerful than the dead, though legal, marriage of Clifford to Connie.

The themes of care, and of flight, run through the films. Connie, seeing a nest, says she'd like to be a bird, perhaps to escape her husband, who is irritable and cold. Mellors, as gamekeeper, patrols for poachers, but also raises pheasants for Sir Clifford by taking most of their eggs and putting them under sitting hens. One of the first things he says to Connie, when he indicates a bench she can rest on, is, `You've not been well, I know'. Soon the eggs have hatched, and a tender scene has Mellors and Connie watching the tiny chicks -- which she describes as `so unafraid'. Not long after, Mellors is doing the same thing for Connie -- she runs, flies, to the woods to be under him, with whom she feels warm and safe. At the end she persuades Hilda to race to Southampton, hoping to catch Mellors in his own flight to Canada.

Note about the music: It's so awfully florid, I wish Ken Russell would re-score the whole thing using public domain classical pieces. Other than that, though, this 2-DVD set is a fine piece of work, and was hugely popular in the UK when it first aired -- even referred to in `The Vicar of Dibley'. Ken Russell handled the story with great love as well as passion, and the thump you feel in the pit of your stomach may not be entirely due to the eroticism of this film.

Yes, you CAN view 42Up without having seen 35Up, 28Up, etc. But it would be wrong.

Because with each film, less of the past can be shown as each person's past increases -- thus you get only the highlights of each past: e.g., teenage Suzy's dad's death, which enormously affected her; the orphanage-reared Paul's move to Australia, and his marriage to an Oz woman with a big hearty family; Nick's move to the US -- with no class system surrounding him, he's been able to avoid what the rest are still struggling with, but is it worth the high cost of seeing his Yorkshire family no more than every other year?

The participants were all born circa 1956, so age 49 will be around 2005. There are some pasts I hope we hear less of in 49Up: I don't want to hear any more about Tony's casual infidelities, thank you very much. His wife's reactions to his self-justifications ("I'm not proud of it, but every man does it"...that kind of lame excuse), and her silent yet profound unhappiness and betrayal, are excruciating. Besides, these days, infidelity is simply a welcome mat to self-transformation into a disease vector.

But I would genuinely like to know how Neil descended into alarming solitariness and depression without getting therapy in what was then one of the world's largest venues for socialized medicine. (I hope by now he's been able to adjust his brain chemistry. Thank God for Bruce, another 'Up' man who befriended and helped Neil.)

These people become so known to us that every seven years it's like renewing acquaintance. Such fame has not been entirely welcome, though Tony has been able to parlay it into parts as an actor. It must feel uncomfortable to have complete strangers know what you were like at 14...an age most of us feel sincerely relieved to have left behind. That the ones who continue to say yes to Michael Apted and his crew generally handle their filming with immense dignity and humor speaks volumes about their generosity -- and their curiosity. How are the others doing? How am I compared to seven years ago? What have I learned during those years? What can I learn from this episode?

For the 'Up' people: thank you for your willingness to open your lives and homes, to answer intrusive questions, to demonstrate your values and what's brought you through, and to give us all a better understanding of what human growth is really about.

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

"Sometimes I just wish I was a whole different person," Pearl Kantrowitz (Diane Lane) tells her friend in an unguarded moment of "A Walk On The Moon". The friend's reaction? "Yuck."

Exactly.

Long review coming -- so sit, already!

When this movie's trailers came out in 1999, I cringed, avoided the film, walked past its posters with my eyes averted. I had divorced the year before, within the years of my marriage had unfortunately been a deceived wife, and had no desire to re-visit that pain. Fast-forward to 2003: Having grown a great deal, I decided to rent what I had avoided. I'm so glad I did. "A Walk on the Moon" is a lovely, authentic film with a light-seeming yet solid screenplay, great direction, and fabulous acting by a talented cast. (Watch the expressions of Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen, which subtly change to portray rainbows of emotions within a few seconds.)

The Kantrowitzes (culturally though not particularly religiously Jewish) have rented for the umpteenth summer one of many tiny lakeside cottages owned by a Dr. Fogler in the Catskills. Friends they've met over the years there also rent near them. Their children (Alison, 14 -- Anna Paquin in a totally believable performance -- and Danny, 6) stay there during the week while their father Marty (Liev Schreiber) drives back and forth from NYC and his job as a TV repairman. Caring for the children is their paternal grandmother, Lilian (Tovah Feldshuh -- wonderful!), and their mother Pearl (Diane Lane). Pearl is 32, we learn, and Marty perhaps a year or two older. It is the summer of 1969 -- culture, music, mores are changing, and the whole family is caught up in a loss of innocence.

Into their enclave of mah-jongg and Sinatra comes hippie-ish Walker Jerome (Viggo Mortensen), the new "Blouse Man" -- a relaxed-attitude businessman, he's bought the bus from the former blouse-man, and drives a circuit, making unscheduled stops at Dr. Fogler's to sell blouses and scarves, and later, at Pearl's suggestion (clearly she knows something about retailing, perhaps from her family-of-origin), sunglasses and jewelry. We learn very little about Walker -- who possesses the mannerly, shy diffidence and "that's cool" attitude which characterized some people of the late-1960s but was often used to disguise inner struggle and pain -- although he lives alone nearby, has a vegetable garden, and reads the book "A Place in the Woods" (still in print, this 1969 account by Helen Hoover details how she and her husband left their jobs in Chicago to pioneer back-to-the-land in northwoods Minnesota). We also learn that Walker's soldier-or-spook kid brother has been missing in Southeast Asia for four years.

Some reviewers below mention that Pearl leads a content, middle- (or even upper-middle-) class life. Not true. The Kantrowitzes do not have much money (why else would Pearl's mother-in-law live with them in what, judging from the neighborhood -- first minutes of the movie -- is an apartment? And did you see the car's interior on the drive up to Fogler's? The reason Pearl walks quite a way to the kosher butcher, getting caught in rain, is that Marty's taken their one car back to NYC.). Marty repairs TVs, but doesn't even own the business.

The back story, mentioned in passing by the grandmother and Pearl, is that one summer as a teen, Pearl visited one of the posh Catskills resorts with her family (recall the lakeside resort of "Dirty Dancing" or the even posher Grossinger's). Marty worked there that summer as a waiter, earning salary and tips to attend college, then perhaps med school. Marty spotted Pearl, was enthralled, they began to see each other over the weeks, she'd never had a boyfriend before, they made love, she got pregnant the first time. At 17. In getting pregnant then (remember how illegal and dangerous abortion was in the summer of 1954 -- when Alison would have been conceived, if she's now 14 in the summer of 1969), in deciding to marry a young man at whom her parents were probably appalled, given their hopes for the lovely young Pearl, in becoming a wife and mother so very early, Pearl has missed out on a great deal of life. (As has, of course, Marty, who gave up his educational plans to support wife and daughter.)

Now, this summer, Pearl's daughter has her first period. This is a major moment for a mom, as well. Put anthropologically, Pearl is no longer the only female of reproductive age in the house. Therefore, as happy as she is about her daughter's growth, she also feels older. (At a mere 32, an age when many women nowadays are just marrying.)

Having personally experienced what infidelity does to a family and to the betrayed spouse from a vantage point similar to Marty's, I'll say right now that the decision to be unfaithful is a poor one. (Cliche but true: You can't solve problems within a marriage by going outside it.) It's clear, however, that Pearl has been trying to let Marty know that there IS a problem. It's just that she doesn't know how to bang him over the head with it, and, like most wives, wants to preserve peace. (What's the price of peace? Oh, yes, eternal vigilance.)

Several reviewers below (male, I think) sound puzzled: what makes Walker seem so attractive to Pearl? Okay, guys, here's a partial list: Walker Jerome is: handsome and Aryan-looking (in the 1960s, Jewish girls were still taught that sex was the only thing Christian boys wanted); blond, long-haired and semi-bearded, therefore exotic to Pearl; soft-spoken; polite; gracious; good-humored and smiles easily; listens to Pearl; clearly admires her physically; takes her suggestions and thanks her for them; more relaxed than Marty; a man who seems to genuinely like women; courtly; sensual (watch his hands, and his intensity when he and Pearl finally make love); kind to others (e.g., his resolution of the blouse argument between Lilian and Selma), including kids; helpful (as with Danny's wasp stings -- the irony here! since "Walker Jerome" is an incredibly WASPy name, and he's certainly "stung" Pearl). Even Lilian, Marty's mother, displays a certain amount of respect and gratitude toward Walker when his wasp-sting techniques turn out to be better than hers. In fact, Walker really does embody many Boy Scout virtues. (No one in this film is obviously given to evil -- though good people can certainly do unhealthy things.)

Walker wants Pearl, but she has to make the first move. As he gets to know her, his feelings for her grow -- they're mainly visible through his eyes and mouth. He can't offer her marriage, nor children -- she has the one, and would clearly prefer not to have more kids. He does offer something new: making love outside, sleeping under the stars, a bodily connection and sensuality she's never known. But he knows it's Pearl's decision. Will she remain in her marriage, or not? If she does, will it be from love -- or from obligation? If she doesn't, will she come with him out West? (When he suggests that they take her kids, too, she looks close to melting.)

Although Pearl feels attracted to Walker from the first time their eyes meet, she does not act on that by phoning to meet him until AFTER:

-- She asks her husband Marty to request more time off from his boss, so she can be with Marty more this summer at the lake, but Marty refuses even to ask;

-- She suggests to Marty that they "experiment" a little in their lovemaking, but instead of rejoicing in a sexually-interested wife, he asks what's "wrong with the way we've been doing it", and then, childlike, dresses up in their son Danny's cowboy hat and pistols;

-- Alison reveals that her first menstrual period has begun, and then that she has her first date;

-- Marty calls from New York to say that he can't come up this weekend, he'll be fixing TVs for people who want to watch the Apollo moon walk;

-- Pearl experiences the really yucky part of being a mom (Alison, told she's not permitted to camp out at Woodstock, screams, "I hate you!"), and naturally wants to be perceived as lovable.

As Marty asks later, was Pearl thinking when she began with Walker? Was she thinking of anyone but herself? Probably not. Yet for her, infidelity is so big, so cataclysmic, that it's the accumulation of little hurts that finally turns her toward Walker.

Marty finds out from his mother, and the earlier confrontation between Pearl and her mother-in-law is fascinating. Picking blueberries together, Lilian says to Pearl, "You're shtupping someone....the blouse man." Yet she doesn't try to dissuade Pearl so much on the simple basis of betrayal, her son Marty's prospective hurt feelings, "how could you do this to us?". Instead, she challenges her to act ethically, to be a mensch. Lilian tells Pearl about Marty's dreams, too, so that Pearl will know she hasn't been alone in setting aside her own desires for Alison and Danny. It's a wonderful scene, very mature.

Whether you prefer typical American film conclusions (up) or typical European endings (down), this ending is so bittersweet that, really, you can have it both ways. Pearl and Marty have passed the crossroads. Perhaps they're on a new footing, perhaps they'll learn to be more open with each other. Perhaps not. But they've begun to recognize the truth of their marriage, and how staying stuck in each of their roles has meant the marriage hasn't grown for a while.

Ten years from now, in 1979, perhaps they'll regard this summer as a terribly painful time -- that led them to rekindle their love and attention to each other.

"Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made like bread, re-made all the time, made new." -- Ursula LeGuin.