benno-das

A very badly produced documentary, if you can call this one. No attempt has been made to improve the quality of videos or even have a script to string history chronologically with a voice over. Several big artistes and events have been omitted (no archive, so let's pretend they never were part of R'nR history) Digital technology was available for the big studio which released this. But all it seems to have done was to have a video editor to intersperse archived 'live shows' with spliced interviews to make it look like a documentary. Who made Peter Townshend and Tom Petty an authority on everybody? It's a rip off from Warner Brothers. Clearly, nothing worthwhile has been spent in producing this. It is not worth watching, even if someone gifts it to you.

A mediocre film from the Merchant Ivory stable. One wonders the standards of Columbia University if this won an award for screenplay despite showing an entire community in poor light. Worse, the Indian roots of the directors, several actors or supporting cast or crew could not redeem a hopelessly biased script which has damaged the reputation of a community.

It's not about just the protagonist, but every character from her community is shown as petty-minded, ignorant, thieving, drunk or wannabe brown madams. There is not a single character to tell an unsuspecting viewer that like every other community, even this one has its good and bad apples. One of the dialogues uttered by a British 'mam sahib' is "the Anglo-Indian community has the worst of Indian and English characteristics".

The movie should have been flagged for willful portrayal of hateful and distorted content and for tarnishing the image of a microscopic minority. It can be categorised along with dangerous propaganda movies made by certain regimes in western Europe in the mid-1930s. Inheritors of Merchant Ivory Productions must be sued for making this ugly film. And that's not too late

I guess there are enough reviews here but thought of writing a few lines because of the meta score. My personal experience so far suggested that those whose reviews make for the meta score comprise a pretentious lot who give 10 stars for any movie that can be termed as 'the emperor's new clothes' but shudder at something that can give a beautiful experience for ordinary moviegoers. The rating for this movie just confirmed that theory. This is a powerful movie which puts across the limitations and manipulations of the American health insurance system, apart from telling a moving tale, even if too dramatic is powerful. It compels one to sit back and think about the fat cats who live off poor people's miseries.