Midnight's Children

Midnight’s Children

Stillborn Ego-trip

Born at the very stroke of midnight on August 15^th, 1947, the day India threw off the shackles of British Colonialism and became an independent nation, two boys’ fates are inextricably linked when their midwife deliberately swaps them at birth, altering their destinies.  Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha) grows up rich and privileged while Shiva (Siddharth) grows up poor and angry but both boys are part of a group of super-powered individuals, Midnight’s Children, born in the hour of India’s independence.  As they grow to maturity, their youthful country shares their growing pains and upheavals.

“I AM VERY PROUD OF THIS FILM.”  SALMAN RUSHDIE – boldly proclaim the posters for Midnight’s Children, Indian-Canadian director Deepa Mehta’s film of Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel.  Based on a screenplay adaptation by Rushdie.  Narrated by Rushdie.  Who also executive produced.  Who knows?  Maybe he did the catering too?  When the only quote on your movie poster comes from the writer/narrator/exec producer of the film based on his own book, you would think that might set off a few alarm bells, that maybe you’re about to unleash a two-and-a-half hour vanity trip on the audience.

It’s rarely, if ever, a good idea to allow an author to adapt their own work for the screen.  It’s always going to be too faithful, too reverent, too literary.  Let’s face it; if they couldn’t get the novel down to under 600 pages, what’s the chances they’re going to give you a two hour film?  Never gonna happen!  But to then allow them to fussily deliver one of the most intrusive, unengaging, uninformative narration’s in film history is just asking for trouble.  Salman Rushdie may be many things but an actor isn’t one of them and his voiceover is unbearably smug and unsubtle, consistently knocking the viewer out of the film. 

Part of the problem is the screenplay, written by Salman Rushdie, which tries to distill over 50 years of Indian history into the Zelig-like tale of three generations of one family and begins in 1917.  Rushdie is blatantly no editor of his work and while there’s some fantastic moments in the first third or so of the film (the shy Dr Aziz’s courtship of his patient Naseem, conducted through a modesty-preserving blanket that prevents the lovers from seeing one another’s faces, may be the best sequence of the film) but the film lacks narrative drive and, if it’s the story of Saleem and India, that’s a good two generations that could have been trimmed from the front of the film.  It’s episodic, lumbering, lacks depth.  It rattles through independence and partition, civil war in Pakistan, the formation of Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi’s state of national emergency and her genocidal pogroms against India’s poor (which according to Rushdie were due to her persecution of India’s own vaguely defined, super powered X-men).  But it fails to hold the interest.  And if you can’t make 50 years of such turbulent history and people with super powers interesting, surely that’s not good?  There are no characters to care about, they’re merely avatars to illustrate Rushdie’s rather obvious and heavy-handed political allegory and the performances are pretty lacklustre across the board with only Seema Biswas as nurse/nanny Mary and Rahul Bose’s General Zia-like army officer Zulfikar making any kind of impression.

Far too faithful to the novel and almost impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t read the book, Midnight’s Children looks fantastic, so sumptuously, beautifully shot it’s practically edible.  But it’s ultimately unsatisfying, an epic but ponderous fellating of its author’s ego.

David Watson

Directed by:

Deepa Mehta

Written by:

Salman Rushdie

Produced by:

David Hamilton

Starring:

Satya Bhabha, Shahana Goswami, Rajat Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Ronit Roy and Siddharth

Genre:

Drama

Language:

English

Runtime:

2 hours 26 minutes

Certificate:

12a

Rating:

2/5

UK Cinema Release Date:

Friday 26^th December