Audience Member
The most beautiful 01 hour: and 55 minutes ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
Full Review
Audience Member
It's the visual texture of the film that may capture you first, with a zealous focus on representing the era authentically. The movie takes you to places you really don't want to go, get intimate with characters you'd rather not meet, rub grime on yourself laguidly, absently even though you'd rather not accept how abrasive this thick muck feels on your skin. There's nothing 'nice' about this reallity that served the baser instincts of Indian society for well over a decade. It's a time and place the 'new' India would rather forget.
The cinematography is what gets you there and keeps you uncomfortably ensconced in it. The lighting and the art direction help the sense of stuck time that makes you aware of impending doom and continued impossibility of hope. It's Sonu's character you might identify with most. Remember when you were a child and thought things get better? But then, as you grew up, you realised how fucked up everything really was? Maybe you've revisited that hope from time to time but always found yourself kicking yourself for forgetting how things really are. In a sense, the movie is about Sonu losing that innocence, slipping in the blackness of his reality, one that his brother revels in. It's Pinky's character that is most layered. You want to believe in her 'purety' but at some point suspect that there's something you don't know about her. It's that subtle craftsmanship that you will remember both Niharika Singh (in her debut, no less) and Ashim Ahluwalia's direction.
My suggestion is to darken the room, get a drink of whatever you used to drink in college when money was tight and you weren't too discerning. Swirl in some of that innocence you lost when you entered the 'real' world. Then, sink in slowly into Miss Lovely.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This is a film that evokes the time and place it is set in perfectly. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is good, as always. If nothing else he is always watchable, and considering he is on screen for about 80% of the runtime, he transfers his watchability to the film.
The film is boring to an extent, but up until the first hour or so it had no problems holding my attention. It's the last 45 minutes or so where it loses focus. (Which is strange - There can't be too many other movies that become less interesting after a dead body is discovered.) There is also a certain lack of coherence in the storytelling - for example, Sonu provides the voiceover for the film and so you'd expect it to be shown from his POV. Yet we see several scenes where he is entirely absent, such as the one between Pinky and Vicky where some key information is revealed.
However,in my opinion the movie has enough style and Siddiqui to compensate for these narrative/plotting stumbling blocks. Ahluwalia's vision seems very confident for a first-time filmmaker. He seems like a director of interest and promise - I will look forward to his next film.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
Full Review
Audience Member
An OK story being executed raw.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
WOW.....WOW.....WOW....WOW....SAD....SAD MAN I HAVE JUST SEEN THIS MOVIE 4 THE 1ST TIME N THINK THAT THIS IS SUCH A GREAT MOVIE 2 WATCH......its got a good cast of actors/actresses throughout this movie.....I think that Zeena Bhatia, Menaka Lalwani, Niharika Singh, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Anil George, play good roles/parts throughout this movie.....I think that the director of this art house/international/drama movie had done a great job of directing this movie because you never know what 2 expect throughout this movie.......I think that this is such a really well written/acted/directed movie 2 watch, it is such a powerful drama movie 2 watch, it is such a really sad movie 2 watch.....
The project started as a documentary on C-grade sex cinema in the lower depths of Bollywood which flourished between the 1970s and the early 2000s when it was eventually made redundant by anonymous internet pornography. During work on the documentary, the director discovered that none of the subjects were willing to appear on camera as shooting pornography in India constitutes a serious criminal offense. The documentary was subsequently shelved. The project was later reworked into a feature film script and set in the past so as to protect the identities of individual subjects and their actual stories. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) gave an 'A' certification to the film
Initial reviews to Miss Lovely at Cannes were contradictory. Expecting a more mainstream film, The Hollywood Reporter noted that "Miss Lovely sets out to prove that Indian cinema can be as frustratingly opaque as a European art movie [and] succeeds rather too well."
In complete contrast, Variety's Alissa Simon gave the film a glowing review, saying "Something new in Indian filmmaking, neither Bollywood nor traditional art cinema, the pic provides a unique, immersive experience...one that owes as much to docu and experimental filmmakers as to Scorsese, Welles and von Sternberg, plunging viewers into the characters' social milieu."
Sight & Sound's Jonathan Romney described the director Ashim Ahluwalia as "a very impressive talent, and given the oppressive conventions of the Indian film industry, he's clearly an independent spirit and then some."
Film Comment's Gavin Smith felt that the film was the strongest in the Un Certain Regard section writing "I hope we do hear more from Indian director Ashim Ahluwalia, whose lively, fast-and-loose Miss Lovely, about two brothers toiling in the world of Bollywood B-movie and softcore porn production in the Eighties, had an off-kilter, at times delirious first hour and then settled into a pungent story of jealousy, betrayal, and doomed love."
Libertas Film Magazine's Joe Bendel noted, "This is clearly a milieu Ahluwalia fully understands. Straddling genres, he toys with crime story elements, but essentially tells a Cain and Abel tale, skewering India's celebrity-obsessed culture and sexual mores along the way. Stylistically, he spans the gamut from trippily disorienting to in-your-face naturalism. This is kitchen-sink filmmaking at its most relentlessly indie. Part expose and part fall-from-grace epic, Miss Lovely is highly recommended for those who simply love films about filmmaking."
Le Monde's Jacques Mandelbaum wrote, "Miss Lovely (is) a splendid film that invites admiration. Through this tragic story set between 1986 and 1993, Ahluwalia films the changing of an era... His direction, full of archival period films, beautifully uses the art of editing, color and off-screen space. One feels a real affection for this admittedly sordid universe, but with a magnificence that the conversion of India to the market economy will simply wipe out."
Another Magazine's Simon Jablonski reviewed the film, saying "Among all that glitters at Cannes Film Festival, there was little quite as visually spectacular as Miss Lovely, directed by Ashim Ahluwalia. In the midst of India's moralistic and conservative codes of censorship, Miss Lovely dived into the world of the secret sex and horror C-movie scene of 80s Bombay. Constantly moving and switching between genre pieces - a gangster flick then a love story then an art house film. Stylistically it's reminiscent of 90s Chinese cinema such as Chungking Express than anything you'd associate with the Bollywood tradition while the wonderfully extravagant costumes and sets call to mind Rainer Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant."
Indian film critic Nandini Ramnath described the film in Mint as "a universe of retro pleasures and pain, atmospheric interiors and decaying exteriors, marginal characters and forbidden dreams... The story follows, but often wanders away from, Sonu's fallout with his brother, his attempts to go solo and his love for Pinky. Amid a hypnotic interplay of colours, tones and textures that has been shot by cinematographer Mohanan, we see Mumbai like it's rarely been seen before... This is pre-globalized Mumbai at its most evocative and perilous. If you feel uneasy while watching the film, you're meant to."
The New York Times's Joan Dupont profiled Miss Lovely and the director Ashim Ahluwalia in a piece titled "Mumbai in the Bad Old Days"
Miss Lovely has won multiple awards including Best Film in the "India Gold" category at the 14th Mumbai Film Festival and Best Feature Film Award at the 11th Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles
man this is such a really powerful drama movie 2 watch, its got a great cast throughout this movie.....I think that this is such a really powerful drama movie 2 watch,
National Film AwardsNational Film Award - Special Jury Award (Feature film) (director) - Ashim Ahluwalia
National Film Award for Best Production Design - Ashim Ahluwalia, Tabasheer Zutshi and Parichit Paralkar
man this is such a really powerful drama movie 2 watch, it is such a really really sad movie 2 watch, its got a good soundtrack throughout this movie.....man this is such a really sad movie 2 watch, but it is so brilliant movie 2 watch......I think that this is such a really well written/acted/directed movie 2 watch.....its got a great cast throughout this movie......I think that this is such a fantastic movie 2 watch, it is such a sad movie 2 watch, but it is such a brilliant movie 2 watch with such a fantastic cast throughout this movie......WARNING THIS MOVIE CONTAINS STROBE LIGHTNING EFFECTS THORUGHOUT SOME SCENES THROUGHOUT THIS MOVIE.....man this is such a great movie 2 watch,......
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This is something very different to what you are used to from Indian cinema. It's fairly fresh for its depiction of an indulgent, sleazy and trashy low-budget 80's cinema production line, although the story around this is too incoherent in places. It's stylish but its style is certainly an acquired taste.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
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