00:00When you're making a movie about your own life, there's a good chance that it becomes
00:04a vanity project.
00:10What I feared just became true when I saw Tovino Thomas's latest Malayalam film,
00:15And The Oscar Goes To.
00:16As the title suggests, it's director Salim Ahmed's national award-winning film, which
00:22got an entry from India into the Oscars in 2011.
00:26Now, you all know that Oscars is all about the marketing and the campaign and the publicity
00:30blitz that precedes the ceremony.
00:32So here we have an underdog Indian filmmaker who goes to LA trying to peddle his movie
00:38to the academy voters.
00:40Do we like it?
00:41There are several portions of the movie that does not just talk to us.
00:45There are emotionally charged sequences where you feel that scenes have been manipulated
00:50or made a little more emotional so that it can tug at our heartstrings.
00:55We have Tovino Thomas, the rising star of Malayalam cinema, who plays the central role,
01:01director Ishaq Ibrahim.
01:03He makes a movie and he sacrifices and puts everything in his life on the line for his
01:08debut movie and how he tries to make a bid for Oscars glory.
01:12Now, it's not easy to win an Oscar.
01:14We all know that.
01:15Any filmmaker worth his salt will tell you, but hearing a tale about it or witnessing
01:20the trials on the big screen can be a bit tedious.
01:24This is what happened.
01:25But what saved the movie from being a complete bore is Tovino Thomas' and the supporting
01:30cast performances.
01:32What worked for me is how earnestly Tovino Thomas has jumped into the role and poured
01:37every bit and every fiber of his being, convincing us that being an aspiring filmmaker is not
01:43an easy job.
01:44In fact, in an interview just before the screening, Tovino Thomas was telling us that he identified
01:49with his role a lot because he's a struggler too.
01:52And you can see the kind of struggles that he had as an actor also reflected on the screen.
01:56You sense the desperation, the quiet desperation of a filmmaker who has no connections in the
02:02industry trying to make it big.
02:03So it's very convincing.
02:05It's one of the finest examples of a well cast film.
02:08In fact, what worked this very mediocre film is the elevated performances of the supporting
02:14cast and the principal character.
02:17Regarding the pace, the first half is quite interesting, where we see Tovino try to make
02:21his movie by somehow arranging the finances and trying to crack the code of making a film.
02:27There are so many problems on a daily basis.
02:30He manages to sell it to us very convincingly.
02:33But it's the second half where the director and the actors falter.
02:36The parts in which where he is set in Los Angeles is not very convincing.
02:42In fact, the publicity, the lady who plays the publicity manager seems to be like the
02:48token white woman in a Malayalam film.
02:50She is shown as a mercurial diva and there's no depth to her character.
02:54The reason to which why she lashes out at an Indian filmmaker trying to make it in LA
02:59is unknown to us and it's not very convincing.
03:02But overall, if you look at it, the movie wins on the performances front.
03:06I've gone with 3 out of 5.
03:08For my full review, go to gulfnews.com slash tabloid.
03:12And also don't forget to subscribe to Gulf News YouTube channel.
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