London Film Festival 2012: Midnight's Children Review
rating: 1.5
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Proving the inherent riskiness of enlisting an artist to adapt their own material into a screenplay, Midnight Children - adapted by Salman Rushdie from his Booker Prize-winning novel - is a prime example of how to completely bungle the feel and experience of a grand story, misjudging tone and even basic storytelling tenets in favour of glibly plotted, saccharine drama. Saleem Sinai (Satya Bhabha) is born on the eve of Indias independence from Britain, and at the behest of an unscrupulous nurse, is swapped at birth with Shiva (Siddharth Narayan), a boy born into a life of privilege. Saleem as such takes his place, and soon discovers that he has the power to communicate with other children who share his birthday, playing out against the backdrop of India's uneasy, uncertain future. Midnight Children begins as an affable enough, quaint comedy about a family of people with comically large noses, even if it soon becomes readily apparent that the central voice-over narration - conducted by Rushdie himself - is thoroughly intrusive, cutting through the entire film; it denies audiences agency to interpret, instead outlining every minute detail of character thought and motivation for us. With a tone that fleets from twee and quirky to bombastic and maudlin at the tip of a hat, all that's left in the end, unfortunately, is treacly, empty sentiment. The ropey melodrama that promptly abounds and doesn't abate for around two hours - for the film runs in at a punishing 148 minutes - is made less bearable given that we don't care at all about the characters; Rushdie, despite holding "ownership", has made of his creations hollow shades, even cardboard cut-outs. Only in one scene - where we observe the full, violent measure of paternal rage - does his script, ably acted as it is, harness even a fraction of the power that it so easily should have. Strong visual sensibilities are about as accomplished as this mess gets, because other technical aspects founder; the diabolical editing is especially disjointed, even at times incomprehensible as it cuts between various scenarios indiscriminately. As director Deepa Mehta brings the pieces together, it forms into a bizarre, misguided coming-of-age story, with the aforementioned magical realism elements feeling clumsily thrown in. It is not well-cosseted into the fabric of the story at all, and we're so jaded by act three that we almost hope it just explodes into the superhero pic that it mildly teases. It aims for picaresque, but completely fails, falling back on cornball romance, and the most elementary, manipulative of attempts to please crowds (which it inexorably fails at). A ghastly, shockingly inept piece of filmmaking. Midnight's Children is released in UK cinemas on December 26th.