thecritiquer

House of the Dragon has been so hasty throughout its existence - fussing over foreshadowing and minute details regarding sets and authenticity, making timejumps, introducing characters on the way - that it had been remiss in making the viewers actually connect with the characters. Another major thing it has been remiss in has been the character arc development (how did Daemon undergo such a drastic change is completely missed in the time jump that took place between ep 5 and 6). Episode 8 finally gets the former right. It manages to make us connect and feel sad for Viserys, make us see and empathise with his desperation about wanting the family to love each other even though we understand why that's impossible to forge over a supper. It makes us see the love Daemon has for Rhaenyra, it shows us how vile Aegon and Aemond are instead of just spelling it out for us, it shows the dilemma Alicent goes through on the daily instead of just dropping that in one dramatic scene as they did in episode 7. Till episode 7, I have felt very iffy about this series. It had the stories, actors, background music and production value but it lacked a soul. I have been rooting for it since the fantastic pilot but the show was still not reeling me in. It has finally found its soul and I hope it retains it and gives us the mindblowing war scenes, hard-to-predict twists, scandalous politics along with it.

I have to begin by mentioning the best part of this film - countersight. What a genius concept. Rowling had once mentioned that the toughest part about writing a world of magic was deciding what magic cannot do. Rowling's work had excelled in the field of time travel and divination on a level that few sci-fi/supernatural works have. Using countersight was another genius instance although I believe it should've been put to much more use. Hope it returns in the rest of the films of the series.

The rest of the film however tries very hard to confuse you by creating a muddle of topics and fails at it. It continues to be rigged with inconsistencies and now it has, sadly, fallen to predictability on every level as well. It has become more about confirming our expectations about the background/identity of certain characters. It pains me how Rowling *kind of* forgot a significant moment from the Yule Ball where Dumbledore mentioned he had only stumbled upon the room of requirement once in the form of a bathroom that just appeared out of nowhere.

Another painful aspect about this film is it lacking in depth. Dumbledore's talks with Harry during the resolution part of the films used to be an enjoyable read/watch for me. Here a lousy "let's call it a fate" plays spoilsport.

The film moves at a meandering pace, taking itself overtly seriously and at no point does this style of narration add anything to the film thus making it exhausting whenever it indulges in it. The background music has always been amiss in the Fantastic Beasts series which is a shame because Harry Potter had arguably one of the best music of all.

Overall, as a fan I automatically connect and look forward to watching the character of Dumbledore - who is played very differently by Jude Law that I'd ever expected - but that's mostly the only thing that holds my interest in this series.

India has truly never treated her scientists right. This is the story of one such scientist who was wronged on a supreme level. The story is in public domain but the justice to him was so delayed that, like the idiom goes, it was as good as denied. Kudos to R Madhavan for taking up his story and telling it to the world. However, while doing so, he has been remiss in many aspects.

The movie is frequently extremely on-the-nose and, overall, crudely done. A woman who hasn't smiled in years smiled because of our leading man and we see a nagging mention of it even though we never saw how that equation developed. People around our leading man keep telling us how exceptional he is but we don't really get to witness his smartness until much later. Little factoids keep getting thrown around and the characters append "most people in India don't know this" after saying them in an obvious attempt to be didactic towards the audience.

The film also frequently takes itself too seriously and whenever it does so it, to much disappointment, pulls focus away from its genuine attempts at storytelling. One subjective issue I take with the film is its act of glorifying the one thing that the lead character was indefensibly wrong about. It doesn't even try to put a spin on it to talk about the flip-side of it. And sadly it delivers this sore justification through Shah Rukh Khan.

Shah Rukh Khan is fantastic in his cameo/supporting act. He has been given terrible dialogs and screenplay and yet he does his best to deliver it on his charm and screen presence. R Madhavan is as fantastic as ever. He carries the film on his shoulders with great expertise. Sadly, the same cannot be said about his direction and screenplay-writing, which leave much to be desired.

I am going with a 6/10 with an extra star solely because this is a story that needs to be heard by all. We can't undo the wrong done to Nambi Narayanan but hopefully we don't commit this mistake against our future scientists.