Aunty Ji

Okay, this is a short film with Shabana Azmi in the title role. The film aims to discuss social stigma through the main character of a young woman with an unusual appearance (Anmol Rodriguez), and her relationship with a lovely older Parsi woman (Azmi) who seeks to defy age stereotypes and do the unimaginable for women of her age and cultural strata. The subject is great; it's a novel concept which deserves to be tackled on film but the direction is poor - not in the big things actually but the small ones. The narrative, the photography, the music, the development of the story, are all good, but some of the writing is quite sloppy and lacks credibility. Some tactless comments and actions by strangers and coworkers towards the girl don't ring true and feel forced to the core. In a way it is amusing that a film about stereotypes is depicted so stereotypically, using caricatures as characters.

This is not to say the film is unwatchable, because despite its minuses it's a short film and I do understand the pressure to squeeze everything into a condensed time limit. Much in the script could be forgiven, but worse even is the acting (with the sole exception of Azmi obviously), which is mostly quite amateur, stagy and unnatural. Sometimes it really felt like some of them were reading their lines off cue cards. But the legendary Shabana Azmi is here, and this lady sure knows her stuff - she plays her part with vigor, subtlety, and compassion, and there's a constant sense of playfulness and exuberance in the creation of her wonderful character which radiates through her smiling eyes and makes up for many of the film's flaws. She makes everything better by virtue of her presence alone. In the end, the film is so elevated by her performance that it ends up feeling quite heartwarming and even rewarding.