– The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives (Netflix Series, 8 Episodes)
Yes, I admit it. When I first started watching this series – the 1st episode that is – I almost gave up. It seemed frivolous and name-droppy, designer-spouting – and you can watch folks talk about their branded cars and handbags and exclusive debutante balls (apparently those still are a thing!) but only for so long.
Anyway, I persevered. Which is to say – I dozed off, and woke up in the middle of a skirmish. After that the show grew better as in it focussed on the 4 long-time friends or 4 Bollywood wives who star in this show : Maheep Kapoor (wife of Sanjay Kapoor who was in The Zoya Factor), Neelam Kothari Soni (90s Bollywood heroine, wife of Samir Soni), Bhavana Pandey (Chunky Pandey’s wife and mom of Ananya Pandey of Student of The Year 2 fame) and Seema Khan (wife of Sohail Khan whom you might remember from films like Hello).
The women’s personalities really come through. They are catty, aren’t afraid to air their opinions, wear heels to the pool 🙂 but are firm friends, and the show does manage to portray their long-standing friendship endearingly. The show ended rather nicely too. I hear there is a 2nd season a-coming.
– Molly’s Game (Netflix, 2 hours 20 minutes, Jessica Chasten, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner)
This fast-paced thriller is based on the life of Molly Bloom, who ran the world’s most high-stake poker games before she was arrested by the FBI. Among the folks who played at her games were members of mafias and crime syndicates, and she was caught in the cross-fire. Under pressure to cooperate with the FBI, Molly refuses to give-in.
Molly’s Game is really well-told and manages to keep us in the thick of it. It goes backwards and forwards in time, but very skillfully and clearly presents Molly’s case. It was an engrossing watch even at 2.5 hours!
– Chaman Bahar (Netflix, 1 hr 51 minutes, Jitendra Kumar)
Jitendra Kumar, who we most recently saw in the lovely series Panchayat, stars in this film as humble pawn-shop owner Billu who falls in love with a school-girl, who stays in her home with her family, across the road from his pawn-shop.
Rinku, the pretty school-girl, has many admirers, whom she is wholly unaware of. Billu, from whose point of view the film’s story is told, attempts to keep the admirers at bay, but ends up messing up his own situation. The film isn’t full of big events, and doesn’t really go from point A to B; rather it is a character/situational study of young, unrequited love in a small-town.
