'Despite its noble attempts, tight editing, terrific sound design, good performances and a compelling story, Hotel Mumbai tells a big lie.'
'I felt a constant gag in my throat, and emerged from the movie somewhat mugged,' confesses Sreehari Nair.
'Mulk gets a lot of things right, including its vision of the country as a place where underneath the punctilious, forced-secular surface there are volatilities waiting to go off,' says Sreehari Nair.
Aseem Chhabra watched some great films and some huge disappointments in 2020.
If Manto, the film, falls short of being a masterpiece it's because Nandita Das could not quite crack the Manto code: She couldn't quite see the wholeness of her subject with the same eyes that Manto saw his people. This imperfection in the film, in a way, becomes the greatest tribute to Manto, feels Sreehari Nair.