Anu is a really completely different movie than what I believed. I got here to it with a mistaken perspective considering it might be a kids’s movie. Adapted from the youngsters’s novel Looking for Bapu, it wasn’t going to be a movie arrange for adults. From the very starting, Sudeshna Sen takes a really assured place of humbleness regarding the movie’s delicate theme. There is nothing naive or gullible concerning the method to dying. The movie solidly accomplishes a compelling crossover between a kids’s guide and an adaptation that feels way more mature than what it’s speculated to be.
Anu tells the story of Anu, a 12-year-old woman who has a powerful relationship along with her grandfather Bapu. The connection is way more important than the one she has along with her dad and mom. But all of a sudden Bapu passes away, and the entire household is compelled to face the loss. In the middle, Anu is adamant to just accept the void and tries do the whole lot to “recover” the presence of her beloved grandfather. This leads Anu in direction of a dramatic journey of the way to take care of irrecoverable loss, and this enables her to discover the various foundations of her Indian background. The spiritual and cultural setting are sufficiently big to make this the movie’s most vital gadget, by way of which some issues may very well be solved.
What’s vital about how the movie develops its method is that the director stays away from the ingredient of false hope. Anu after all is the one who suffers the movie’s course as a result of she received’t cease till discovering a solution. An reply and an answer, for the which means of dying and the doable transcendence her tradition has taught her about. What takes place ultimately is a bittersweet occasion that may drive her to develop up in the course of a disaster.
But there’s gentle on the finish of the tunnel. The final result is way more related and grounded than it must, and it performs nicely for the context. The realization of her connection along with her grandfather is a silent act throughout which she accepts that her grandfather’s legacy is just nearly as good as her presence on Earth to observe up on household values of kindness and respect.
Diya Modi as Anu shines. The younger actress’ efficiency is sweet sufficient to make us purchase her unusual however finally obligatory motivations. Even when she’s being form of brat, Modi restrains herself from being extreme which might trigger her character to lose some steam. She’s all the time in management, one thing uncommon within the case of younger actors.
Sudeshna Sen is a newcomer to movie. This turns into clear because the movie’s second act rushes by too rapidly and Anu’s endeavor will get complicated, and the connection along with her dad and mom turns into arduous to digest. But Sen does sufficient to stamp her personal title within the dynamics of indie cinema when portraying drama with sufficient drive to depart you considering. This movie received’t change your life, however it’ll make you wish to name each member of your loved ones to inform them how a lot you miss them and the way a lot they imply to you. I suppose that’s sufficient for a comparatively new profession in cinema.
Founder of Screentology. Member of the OFCS. RT Certified Critic
Dog dad.