Reviewing: Freedom at Midnight Season 1
OTT Platform released on: Sony Liv
IMDb rating: 8.4/10
My rating: Does it matter?
I really am thankful I did not attempt to make a career in show business. I’d have sucked. Why do I say this? The movies (Shool, Angoor, Lakshya) I seem to love are box office duds. I’d have lost my funders huge amounts of money. Conversely, the movies the people so obviously love (Tridev, Singham, Sultan) seem like cringefests to my stupid brain. I’d have missed out on massive opportunities for my backers.
Which brings me the OTT serial ‘Freedom at Midnight’. Now, I thought the book by Lapierre and Collins was mostly a fine piece of work, within the given context and amongst the other books on that subject. But the serial? Uh-huh.
Horrid acting (I cringed every time Nehru or Mountbatten, or Gandhi or Liaqat said literally anything; the sole exceptions being Jinnah and Patel, who appeared at least close to authentic) in non-existent accents, generic period sets, confusing costumes, alternately over and undercooked (and oftentimes unnecessary) music & lighting, bad dialogue writing, forced humour, you name it. Everything about this is, to use a euphemism, amateurish. It is pretentious and fake, trying to be grand but failing at a fundamental level to make the audience feel the gravity of the times as demanded by the period in which it is based. Indeed, the actual events depicted in the show were probably more thrilling and heart-stopping than the director could even have imagined, leave alone bring alive on screen. One would have hoped they’d at least made an attempt to touch that feeling and introduce it to the audience. But it would seem they didn’t even try.
Almost everybody is miscast. I mean, do we not know how each of these founding heroes of India looked? The only character I am willing to make allowances for is Nehru’s, because it truly is extremely difficult to find someone who has the good looks and exudes the aura he did (RK Laxman has gone on record admitting how, until he saw the bald Nehru without his cap, he simply could not find any angle to caricature such a handsome man). We, who were raised on Roshan Seth, are probably biased in what we imagine Panditji to have been. But surely, there are images, pictures, and videos of the great man. Getting Nehru and Gandhi wrong in a show about India’s freedom is absolutely unpardonable.
I stopped watching after a couple of episodes. And went and read the reviews, to my horror, only to reinforce the well-known feeling that over the past 4 decades, show business has gained considerably by my absence. I’m sure if only they knew, they’d be grateful for this good turn I have done on their entire industry, albeit unintentionally. And for this, they should perhaps consider a lifetime achievement award just for my sacrifice.
I’d like to thank the Academy (in this case, the National Defence Academy, the invitation to which I decided to spurn because I wished to give my JEEs, which I duly and promptly failed to clear), my cool-headed parents, my career-minded friends who only wanted to become doctors, engineers, and CAs, my lovely career counselor, who, by turning up drunk at the only session I had, did not add confusion to my already confused mind, my school, where they filled my head with how good boys don’t go into films, the screwed up morality and parenting of the 1970s and 1980s, the Indian Air Force and Air India, which allowed me to live in Versova and see how bad the strugglers’ lives are, and of course, my totally irrational hormone-driven intellect at 18, when I decided that show business isn’t what I am cut out for. You’re welcome, Bollywood. I love you too. Muah. Muah.
