A question one should never ask a film critic

My standard reaction, apart from the couple outlined above, is: “wait for the review”. Which I hope will let me off the hook. But there are those who will not be dissuaded or deflected. You learn, over the years, to spot them from afar and eel past them, and hope they will find all the answers when they read what you’ve written.

What really stumps me, even after all these years, is the question coming at you after people have read the review. Yes, yes, they say, all that is very well, and of course I read what you wrote, but “Should I watch the film”?

To which, if I am brutally honest (which I hope I am at all times, because that is the only way a critic can be held to be credible), I should say: How do I know? And when my questioner looks puzzled and say, but you’re the critic, you of all people should know. I say, sure, that may be as it may be, but how do I know what you like?

Let me give you an analogy. Suppose, I go out for a Thai meal, and am served a slap-up red curry with just the right amount of fieriness and sweetness, just the right amount of galangal and coconut milk, and just enough kafir lime leaves to tart it up, and the sticky rice is just sticky enough, and the raw papaya salad has just the right crunch, I will naturally return all fed-up and fulfilled and showering praises upon the chef and the eatery.

Now, suppose the opposite happens. I get a soggy, tasteless meal where nothing is as it should be. There could be other options: most of it was fine, just a couple of things were off. Or most of it was a mess, just a couple of accents hit the spot. I would then tell you just what was it that I liked, and not.

There would be no ambiguity about this “review” to anyone listening, and it would be helpful for other lovers of Thai cuisine to make up their minds about whether they should take a chance with the restaurant. (If they trusted my opinion on food, that is)

Now suppose you can’t stand Thai. You might love Italian, or Malaysian, or Tex Mex. Or Chinese or Naga or coastal Andhra. How can what I liked (or not) affect you?

If you, on the other hand, are interested in all foods, and are genuinely curious about my take, you may listen, weigh it in your mind, and go sample it. Or not. Which is as it should be.

I’m not saying a movie is like a meal-with-its-many-variables. On the day you go, the chef may have had an off day. The chef may be off, and the understudy may have botched up your favourite dish, and unless you have a friend in the kitchen who may have given you a hint, you may just come back from your favourite eatery feeling disappointed.

A film stays just the way it is, regardless of who is watching. But there are kinds and kinds of films, genres, actors. If I seriously start answering your question “should I watch”, I will start with: do you like this genre (comedy, action, horror, rom-com and so on), do you like this actor (Parineeti Chopra or Emily Blunt or Tom Cruise or Akshay Kumar), do you like…? I will play 20 questions, in effect.

By the end of it, you could wonder if there is a simple yes-no answer to your question. And I will tell you, there is not. As a professional critic, my job is to watch ’em all ( or let’s say, as many as possible) films. Horror is not my favourite genre (I have been known to want to dive under my seat when a particularly scary moment comes up). But, and this is important, I bring to everything the same set of “reviewing” parameters: questing eyes, mind, heart and a desire to be told a story that will transport me.

What you could ask me, instead, is: what did you think of the film? And then think about it yourself.