Here's what you can watch this weekend. This week, there are varied titles for your viewing pleasure. However, most titles fail to deliver on the promise. The exceptions are Mithya, a psychological thriller on ZEE5, and Severance on Apple TV Plus. Severance, particularly, has an intriguing plot where an individual opts to surgically divide his work and personal life.
A Thursday: Disney Plus Hotstar
A Thursday released on Disney+ Hotstar on February 17. A teacher Naina, played by Yami Gautam, kidnaps 16 children of her playschool and demands Rs 50 crore and a meeting with the Prime Minister (Dimple Kapadia). The thriller is directed by Behzad Khambata and produced by Ronnie Screwvala. The Indian Express film critic Shubhra Gupta found the issue of the film worthy but its treatment “ludicrous”. In her review, she wrote, “This kind of film needs to keep us on edge, and ratchet up the tension as it goes along, but this Yami Gautam starrer wastes too much of its time, and ours, before revealing its goods.”
Read the review of A Thursday here.
Mithya: ZEE5
Directed by Rohan Sippy, Mithya is a thriller revolving around a college professor Juhi (Huma Qureshi) and her student Rhea Rajguru, played by Bhagyashree’s daughter Avantika Dassani. When Juhi discovers that Rhea has cheated in her exam, the two get involved in verbal fights and blackmail. Rhea unearths secrets about Juhi’s life. In her review of the eight-part series, Shubhra Gupta wrote, “Infidelity, long-term guilt, and a burning desire for revenge make great companions for a story like this one, and ‘Mithya’ works best when it locks those in, even when its beats turn predictable quite soon.”
Read the review of Mithya here.
Uncharted: In cinemas
Tom Holland in Uncharted. (Photo: Sony Pictures Releasing) The Tom Holland-starrer is based on the video game series of the same name. It is an origin story for Drake (Holland) and Sully (Wahlberg) as they enter an Indian Jones-esque world. In her review of the movie, The Indian Express’ Shalini Langer wrote, “Director Ruben Fleischer stuffs the film with way too many strands than he can handle, way too much digging around a dungeon, and way less mystery than the premise promises.”
Read the review of Uncharted here.
Severance: Apple TV Plus
Adam Scott in a still from Severance, the terrific new show from director Ben Stiller. (Photo: Apple TV+) Apple TV Plus’ new original series revolves around Mark, played by Adam Scott, who decides to separate his work memories and personal memories through a surgical procedure. This experiment in ‘work-life balance’ is called into question when Mark finds himself at the centre of an unravelling mystery and he confronts the true nature of his work. Indianexpress.com’s Rohan Naahar found the show “thought-provoking, thrilling, and impeccably well made”. In his five-star review, he wrote, “Thrilling and thought-provoking, Apple’s new show is something that Christopher Nolan would be proud of.”
Read the review of Severance here.
Petit Maman: Amazon Prime Video, Mubi
Petit Maman is streaming on Mubi in India. (Photo: Canal+) The official synopsis of Celine Sciamma’s Petit Maman reads, “8-year-old Nelly has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mom, Marion, used to play and built the treehouse she’s heard so much about. One day her mother abruptly leaves. That’s when Nelly meets a girl her own age in the woods building a treehouse. Her name is Marion.” The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta wrote about the film when it premiered at Berlinale 2021. She opined, “Sciamma’s films take us deep into the female psyche with startling surety, in a way very few contemporary filmmakers do. There’s a delicacy with which she builds up telling details.”
Read the review of Petit Maman here.
Jeen-Yuhs: Netflix
Jeen-Yuhs is streaming on Netflix. Jeen-Yuhs explores the life of singer, rapper and songwriter Kanye West, beginning from his early days to his rise to global fame, his relationships, his marriage and everything else until the present. Indianexpress.com’s Kshitij Rawat suggests that the documentary is only for die-hard fans of Kanye West. After watching the first episode of the series, he wrote, “As appeared to be the case in the trailer, the documentary Jeen-Yuhs, or at least the first episode, is much in awe of the rapper to be anything but completely devoted to the cult of Kanye West.”
Read the review of Jeen-Yuhs here.
Kimi: Amazon Prime Video
Director Steven Soderbergh’s Kimi is about an agoraphobic tech worker who discovers a recording about a violent crime and tries to report it to her seniors. In his review of the film, Rohan Naahar noted, “Kimi is a cracking 90-minute paranoid thriller that perfectly captures the unpredictable intensity of pandemic life. Slickly made, crisply paced, and minimalist to the point of being experimental, Kimi marks a hattrick of knockout films that Soderbergh–Let Them All Talk and No Sudden Move are the other two–has made for HBO Max in the last three years.”
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
