Bollywood, unsentimentally. Loves the classics, has no patience left for nepotism dressed up as talent.
· 5 min read
Rajinikanth’s sequel understands that charisma needs a cinematic frame, not merely a famous surname and a marketing budget. Hindi cinema will copy the scale while ignoring the craft, because nepotism is easier than star-making.
· 7 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan gets affecting work from Ishaan Khatter and Vishal Jethwa, but one fine film cannot turn inherited access into meritocracy. Bollywood should learn the right lesson: rigorous directors create performances; surnames merely create opportunities.
· 6 min read
Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway are not the problem with ‘Verity’; they are the expensive curtains hiding an empty room. Hollywood’s adaptation machine has learned the wrong lesson from popular books: recognition can sell an opening, but it cannot create a movie.
· 7 min read
Bollywood keeps insisting that audiences reject unfamiliar faces, then acts surprised when a sincere romance turns two young actors into stars. Saiyaara’s success was not a defence of nepotism; it was evidence that packaging, music and directorial conviction matter more than inherited celebrity.
· 6 min read
Lagaan was expensive, star-driven and crowd-pleasing, yet it trusted an original world and a patient screenplay. Bollywood’s current risk aversion is not caused by audiences; it is caused by producers confusing recognisable intellectual property with imagination.
· 5 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan’s film gives inherited stars no immunity from judgment and lets Vishal Jethwa’s disciplined performance expose Bollywood’s lazy obsession with surnames.
· 5 min read
The franchise works because audiences are hungry for disciplined storytelling, but Bollywood’s lesson seems to be ‘make more sequels’ rather than ‘write better films.’ That is the safest and least interesting reading of its success.
· 6 min read
The Hindi Drishyam franchise succeeds because it treats screenplay, consequence and middle-class anxiety as the stars. Its final chapter is not flawless, but it exposes how little nepotistic packaging matters when a film gives audiences an actual dramatic machine.
· 6 min read
Lagaan endures because it married star power to risk, craft and a complete ensemble. Modern Hindi cinema keeps launching surnames while forgetting that audiences remember worlds, not pedigrees.
· 6 min read
The appetite for another Drishyam film is not merely nostalgia for Vijay Salgaonkar. It is an indictment of an industry that keeps mistaking stars, exposition and louder background music for suspense.
· 6 min read
Audiences turned up for a familiar franchise because its real star is narrative consequence, not inherited glamour. Bollywood should learn the right lesson: durable suspense beats expensive entitlement.
· 7 min read
Old films returning to packed theatres are not merely nostalgia winning a weekend. I see them as an audience audit of a star system that keeps selling surnames and scale while neglecting memorable writing.
· 7 min read
A hit led by newcomers should encourage producers to widen access and invest in music, writing and direction. Bollywood’s family factories will instead treat it as proof that audiences love any debut packaged expensively enough.
· 5 min read
Neeraj Ghaywan’s film shows what happens when Hindi cinema trusts observation, craft and actors over inherited celebrity. The industry has not lacked material; it has lacked the nerve to back filmmakers who can see it.
· 6 min read
Audiences returning to older films are not merely buying nostalgia. They are voting for memorable writing, music and star presence that too many new releases replace with franchise packaging and inherited celebrity.
· 6 min read
The original became beloved because it observed Delhi’s middle class instead of flattering a franchise audience. A second film can work, but nostalgia is not a screenplay and familiar faces cannot replace the first film’s social precision.
