There is more choice on the Friday of January 29 than the average moviegoer (or the professional critic) can handle.
Room Lenny Abrahamson’s fifth feature is based on Emma Donoghue’s novel of the same name. This critically adored and Oscar-nominated movie is a tale of incarceration and freedom. Jack, a precocious five-year-old boy (played by Jacob Tremblay), is being held captive with his mother (Brie Larson) by a psychopath. The boy was born into the one-room prison and it is the only world he knows. When a chance at freedom presents itself, an even more frightening scenario emerges: is life inside the “room” better than whatever lies outside?
Saala Khadoos R Madhavan takes a swing at boxing in Sudha Kongara’s debut feature, which has been made in both Tamil and Hindi. (The Tamil title is Irudhu Suttru, or The Final Round). Madhavan plays a coach who decides to take up a lost cause – the responsibility of shaping a fisherman’s daughter (played by Ritika Singh) into a winning pugilist. The generous trailer tells you absolutely everything you need to know about the plot.
Mastizaade Get two Sunny Leones for the price of one in sex comedy specialist Milap Zaveri’s adult-themed movie. Vir Das and Tusshar Kapoor play characters who fall for Leone’s identical twins. One is the uninhibited Laila, and the other is the demure Lily. There’s also some business about flipping a coin, winning a high-stakes game, and many observations on the male and female anatomy.
The Boy Brahms is the “son” of the Heelshire couple, but he isn’t human. He isn’t a pet dog or a hamster either. He is a porcelain doll who is standing in for the Heelshires’ real son, who died in a fire. The Heelshires take the substitution seriously enough to hire a nanny (Lauren Cohan) for the doll, who soon enough begins to show signs of life.
Asterix: Mansions of the Gods Based on one of the comic book by Goscinny-Uderzo, this animated film follows the adventures of the diminutive warrior, his large-waisted friend, and their druid Getafix who brews the magic potion that helps their village hold out against the might of Julius Caesar’s Roman Empire. But Caesar is tired of these indomitable Gauls, and decides to raze the forest around their village and build a luxury apartment complex that will house civilised Romans and eventually force the rebels out.