Hellooo…. long time no see :) As some of y’all know I am in a little bit of a career transition and making full use of the time I have by bingeing shows and going to solo movie dates lately. Time - as I have made it abundantly clear is my favorite currency. A no-agenda-mall-walk that leads to seeing Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari’s faces on a screen in a mall in Noida of all places, and then getting tix to that movie is the recent most impromptu fun thing I have done… Here’s a review of that movie (along with that of some other stuff I watched in the past few weeks):

Good Fortune

The movie starts off with showing Aziz Ansari struggling as a gig worker. He is frustrated with his life to the point of getting a poor rating on task rabbit for having “said dark things to my child” while fixing up someone’s cabinet and having a meltdown infront of a toddler about how tough it is out there, when asked about why does he not have a “real” job. His dad (the same one from Master of None, yes, I know, his real dad) makes a cameo in the movie with the same tech-bro-cousin-earning-so-much-better-comparison while he’s doordashing and taskrabitting his way through life. Then comes Seth Rogen - tech VC who is living a way larger and luxurious life than Aziz…and frankly, most of us. He hires Aziz to clean up his garage which leads to an impromptu opportunity of Aziz becoming Seth’s assistant.

This is when an whole new adventure starts - involving a Freaky Friday kind of situation reminding me of another similar plot line typa Rogen movie - The American Pickle. Without revealing too much of the plot, I’d say the movie leads into a deeply introspective journey into the whole privilege, social inequity, and wealth discrepancy debate- themes that have already impacted me a lot in life. Empathy is a good emotion to have, and is often portrayed in many Hollywood ventures - but such things don’t seem to translate well to an Indian audience. As someone who has lived in both worlds; empathy here would just lead to me being dragged into a sticky situation wherein I end up being deemed too naive/nice or worse-taken advantage of.

Case in point - this movie made me, for once, not ignore the donation kiosk lady that reached out to me in the mall after the movie, and me, just having watched a movie that made me guilty about my privilege, decided to donate for once, as opposed to being assertive and walking away, as one Gurgaon friend of mine very confidently once did and also taught me to do. The lady was so thankless about my donation and asked for more money, and her ‘boss’ made a face so squeamish that it felt I was taking money from their charity, instead of giving.

I then walked away feeling like an idiot for giving away the last and only cash I had on me, that could have come in handy during my train back to hometown tomorrow.

Anywho, having empathy for cheap labor/help in India makes me feel like the following meme (not the punchline, only the premise, lol)

But I do understand where the movie was coming from and if I were also in a position of power like a techbro VC, I’d also probably try to make big moves like Seth, eg: making robowork illegal for food delivery apps, and making courier person wages and benefits more humane. Not sure about the feasibility of that in the real world either tbh

Apart from the deeply introspective nature of the movie, the movie also felt slow at some points. It was nonetheless refreshing to see Aziz and Seth together on the big screen. (4⭐/5)

Too Much

Lena Dunham has done it again. Although not as great at GIRLS on HBO, Too Much does deliver with that Lena style sharp wit and romcomey vibe I was looking for on a rainy Saturday. The protagonist is not a great actress I’d say, but seeing Lena’s cameos with Elijah playing her husband is what kept me going. The show started too predictable with two flawed and annoying characters having that will-they-wont-they dynamic, which is so hard to deal with IRL, but definitely very interesting to watch on a screen. This is why I picked the show back up only once my own love-life stopped mirroring the dynamic in the show. It probably was also the reason I got back into writing and dressing in my usual eclectic individualistic style again.

Great show - if you have the tolerance for watching flawed characters make poor life choices. You’d also need to have ample indifference about seeing the hellhole that is the current dating scene being potrayed on TV, without it hitting a nerve. (3.5⭐/5)

Four Seasons

Really good mini series with/by Tina Fey. The plot is generic - deadpan comedy but the comedic wit and timing of the writing and delivery makes it extra good. Show starts with Steve Carell announcing how he is no longer in love with his wife. She is not the person he met - Abandoned her hobbies, doesn’t do exciting things with him as a couple or even by herself. Instead of thinking of Steve’s character as a douchey guy who just gets bored of his old wife and finds a new younger hotter woman to date, I actually found his reasoning for finding his marriage so stale and uninspiring actually pretty valid. It can make anyone lose interest. This made me think of all the times I have seen conventionally successful arranged marriaged Indian couples deemed ‘settled’ and ‘sorted’, especially by the boomer audience of their Facebook posts; and wonder…hmmm. . .”how is their marriage REALLY? She really does nothing all day. . .just sits at home. . .and they met only twice prior marrying…what do they talk about after discussing his salary and their trip to Akshardham or Ayodhya Mandir to impress their in-laws. Do they have date nights? As someone who is supposedly a very successful and intelligent computer science graduate, does he find conversations with his wife intellectually stimulating? Or do men just dont care for that?”

I have always wanted to be a fly on the wall in many of my such cousins’ marriages to have these questions answered. Especially when I am compared to, or made to feel sorry for myself, in comparison to their supposedly awesome lives. If that technology starts to exist without me getting a restraining order, lol, maybe I could be a desi Tina Fey and write a similar show because I am sure there are manyyyy a skeleton in desi relationship closets.

Anyways I digress…the show continues to showcase how the friends navigate this separation in their friend group while peripherally reflecting on their own relationship dynamics. No relationship is perfect and everyone has their trials ,tribulations, and doubts. But Tina Fey’s character and her husband (the same actor who used to get nosebleeds when he saw Robin in How I met Your Mother) seem to have stood the test of time throughout the series. The show ends on an interesting plot-twist/cliffhanger which I of course wont reveal. All in all a great show and glad it got picked up for a season 2 (4⭐/5)