…a film that is enjoyable despite its occasional slides into message-y territory…Kangana Ranaut plays Tanu beautifully mixing up the familiar with the new.

The narrative of this Gurvinder Singh film unfolds unhurriedly and still you do not stir from your seats. You watch with a growing sense of dread, praying for safety of innocents in the frame, both two and four-legged.

Lookswise, the film is pure gorgeousness. Trouble is, it is also largely overwrought and inert. The meticulous detailing in the re-creation of one of the most pulsating periods of Bombay’s history, is terrific. Much of the film stays, mostly and disappointingly, on its sumptuous surface.

I’ve said this several times, but I’m ready to implore again: can Bollywood please, please stop making these tired, tiresome remakes? And let sleeping Gabbars lie?

You keep wanting this film to ‘ho ja shuru’, but ‘Kaagaz Ke Fools’ doesn’t have the feet for it.

Satire needs nuance: ‘Jai Ho Democracy’ drowns in obviousness. This, coming from Ranjit Kapoor, is a disappointment. The intention is fine, but the treatment is far from. And it criminally wastes an array of good actors: Kapoor, Puri, Hussain, Biswas, Bashir raise their decibel with zero impact. There’s a Mayawati-like character who is made fun of, and we smile, but she’s gone too soon. As is the point of this film.

Kalki pulls it off, and makes us believe in her Laila…This is a film to be celebrated. I am raising a Margarita, as a toast. Now where’s that straw?

It is a searing, unmissable film​, the best you will see this year. If you feel any other way, well, go ahead, sue me.

The central question this film raises is profound: does the religion you are born into define you for the rest of your life? What if you are not who you believed yourself to be? It articulates the anxieties we live with, and uses the words ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Isaai’ loudly and clearly, which is a relief because films these days are steering clear of these basic descriptives because we are now a nation of the easily offended. But it doesn’t jump into the deep end, carefully skirting the tough questions, and sticks to the majoritarian path, and clichéd representations.

The film’s title is a misnomer. It should have been Many Pahelis Leela, because all through this terrible drag, I kept trying to solve several puzzles with no success, coming up with a big zero in the end.