Review of Midnight's Children (2012) by Jeevan A — 29 Apr 2013

First and foremost, "Midnight's Children" is a suitably epic and pointed look at post independence India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as viewed through the eyes of the generation coming of age with their respective countries. The movie's main target is Partition, not only in the immediate harm it did, but also in how it continues to affect all three countries as the gift that keeps on giving. As the opening line of the movie says, we cannot understand the present without first understanding the past...

...but somewhere on the way to the screen, Salman Rushdie collaborating with director Deepa Mehta on adapting his own novel leaves behind much of the fantasy which made the book such an intriguing read about the midnight's children, the closer those born to midnight of independence day in 1947, the greater their special abilities, with an emphasis on the rivalry between Saleem Sinai(as a boy, Darsheel Safary, later, Satya Bhabha) and Shiva(Siddharth), both born exactly at midnight in the same hospital. Said fantasy would have definitely helped with the above allegory. Instead, the movie takes forever to get started(mind the generalization but I am beginning to suspect that everybody in India has a romantic tale of how their parents or grandparents met and fell in love) while keeping some details that are not exactly relevant to the larger story.