Movies Recap: 2021
2021 has truly been a great year for cinema in general. The OTT wave was already blooming over the industry in the beginning and we saw some exhilarating performances on these platforms. When theatres opened in August, we were left spellbound by some of the biggest box-office hits like Rohit Shetty’s ‘Sooryavanshi’, which opened to a whopping Rs. 26.29 crore on the first day itself. However, this did not take away from stellar performances on the OTT front. Here is my recap of the movies of 2021.
I started my year off with Rohena Gera’s critically acclaimed ‘Sir: Is Love Enough’. I have always admired Tillotoma Shome for her choice of films, especially after Death in the Gunj (2016) and Chintu Ka Birthday (2019). ‘Sir’ brought out another side of her, which was very interesting to watch. In an interview in college with Rohena Gera, I was surprised to learn that no Indian production house/distributor decided to pick up the film as it did not have a ‘popular face’. In fact, even Netflix refused to pick it up when they were first approached.
However, with 2021 I felt that this idea was finally changing. We as audiences are choosing the content for what it is, and not just because of the star-power associated with the film. On Film Companion’s ‘Producer’s Adda 2021’, producer Karan Johar gave the best example to support this – Baahubali started with no big names. However, after the first instalment, S.S Rajamouli and Prabhas became almost a household name.
Another film I really looked forward to in the beginning of the year was Vikramaditya Motwayne’s ‘AK vs AK’. Having studied Federico Fellini for almost a year before I saw Motwayne’s film, I was already excited as to what Indian meta-cinema had in store for me. However, in this meta-cinema adaptation, what really stole the show for me was Harshvardhan Kapoor.
Come April and the Academy Awards fever rushed in. I challenged myself to watch a nomination, almost every night so I was prepared for the Awards, just in time. Out of the nominations for best picture, my pick would be Shaka King’s ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’. Other credible films from the Awards were Minari (Lee Isaac Chung), Sound of Metal (Darius Marder), The Father (Florian Zeller) – (Sir Anthony Hopkins completely stole the show for me in the film!), The Trial of Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin), and MANK (David Fincher). The Academy shorts that won were also terrific, especially the live-action short, ‘Two Distant Strangers’ (Travin Free and Martin Desmond Roe). The film will hit you right at the end and will make you ponder over so much racism that exists in the world today.
My picks for the winners at the Academy Awards 2021: Two Distant Strangers for ‘Live Action Short’ and Judas and the Black Messiah for ‘Best Picture’.
April and May was also a great time for Indian cinema. Prateek Vats’ ‘Eeb Allay Oo’, Dileesh Poothan’s ‘JOJI’, Gitanjali Rao’s ‘Bombay Rose’, Martin Prakkat’s ‘Nayattu’ and Joe Baby’s ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’, are some of my favourites from the months.
Along with films, the year was overall a good year for content in terms of series as well. Kate Winslet’s powerful performance in ‘Mare of Easttown’, or Margaret Qualley’s performance in ‘MAID’, surely left me drop-dead in awe of such strong performances and writing in terms of content. Raj and DK’s ‘Family Man’ was an instant hit this year for me as well! However, I thoroughly loved and enjoyed Raj and Dk’s ‘Cinemabaandi’ - a film on how an auto-driver learns to make a film. A truly must watch light film for a day you aren’t feeling right!
Talking about series, I cannot not mention some of my favorites throughout the year: Grahan (Shailendra Kumar Jha and Ranjan Chandel), Loki (Michael Waldron), Aarya: Season 02 (Ram Madhavani), The Morning Show: Season 2 (Jay Carlson), and ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer (Sara Goodman). However, one of my favorite series this year is from ‘The Viral Fever’ (TVF). TVF has been coming up with really great content. Throughout 2021, I raved about their show ‘Aspirant’s’ and when ‘Kota Factory Season 2’ came out, I was sure to catch it first day-first show.
This year was also a game-changer for Korean Cinema. K-Pop and K-Drama became the trendiest words of the year on Twitter. The BTS Army ravaged on, until… enter ‘Squid Game’. As per a report on Vareity, Netflix released an updated ranking of its top-ten most-watched TV series of all time, based on the shows' first 28 days of viewership. ‘Squid Game’ topped the list with 1.65 billion hours of streaming in its first four weeks. After watching such a gripping show, I was sure to catch ‘Alice in Borderland’, and ‘Hellbound’ – 2 other Korean shows which absolutely blew my mind. I cannot wait for the second season of Alice in Borderland!
Three of my favourite Korean shows this year - Squid Game, Alice in Borderland, and Hellbound.
Stories this year have spoken about friendship, courage, rebellion, hostility, war, and much more and were packed with powerful performances, especially on the Indian front. My favorites, performance and writing-wise were Shoojit Sircar’s ‘Sardar Uddham’, Manu Warrier’s ‘Kuruthi’, P.A Ranjith’s ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’, Dibaker Bannerjee’s ‘Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar’, and T.J. Gnavvel’s ‘Jai Bhim’. Films such as Kuruthi, Sapatta Parambarai and Jai Bhim truly deserve all the recognition they got.
Internationally, my picks for a few of the best films and performances would be Ramin Bahrani’s ‘White Tiger’ (I thought Adarsh Gourav was absolutely phenomenal. In fact, he started off as an actor with TVF and now a BAFTA nomination to his name!), Thomas Vinetberg’s ‘Another Round’ (It won the best International film at this year’s Academy Awards), Ari Aster’s ‘Midsommar’ (watched this for Halloween and was completely disturbed that I couldn’t discuss it with anyone at least for a week later!), Edgar Wright’s ‘Last Night in Soho’, Ridley Scott’s ‘House of Gucci’, Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’, and one of my favourites from the year – Lin Manuel Miranda’s ‘Tick… Tick… Boom!’ (One of the best performances of Andrew Garfield that I have seen in recent times).
Despite theatres opening up, most films at the box office did not perform to their full calibre. Such films include Abhishek Kapoor’s ‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’, Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ (I was really disappointed by this film. Hopefully, it was just a build-up to the second part) and Kabir Khan’s ’83. (It might have been a hit for my parent’s generation, but with a constant narration without conflict, and nothing much that my generation could relate to, I felt it did fall flat). Not only that, but we also did see some really bad films getting churned out. For me, ‘Radhe: Your Most-Wanted Bhai’ (Prabhu deva) ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ (Abhishek Dudhaiya) and Satymev Jayate 2 (Milan Milap Zaveri) tops that list.
I ended the year with Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Being the Ricardos’ (highly recommended if you have watched the 1951-57 American Sitcom ‘I Love Lucy’), Spiderman: No Way Home, ’83, and three films which everyone was looking forward to- Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ (Most people I know did not get the satire in the film, but do watch it for the prolific cast it has), Basil Joseph’s ‘Minnal Murali’ (It was so good to see an Indian superhero film after so long), and Aanand L Rai’s ‘Atrangi Re’.
Being the Ricardos is a 2021 biographical drama film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, about the relationship between I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Overall, the year has brought out some of the best talents, writers, directors, technicians, and films that we have to see. And has truly proved, that with the co-existence of theatres with OTT, the true winner is the audience, with the content coming to them. And how, the audience is truly king. My only hope for the movies in 2022 is that we see more classic cinema with exhilarating work. Because to be honest, we are capable of so much more!
See you at the movies!
