If ever a movie could kill the credibility of both the author and the book its adapted from, this would be it. (Note: I do love the Malgudi Days TV series …. but not this movie)Poor acting, poor direction, bad scripting, and downright plain silliness mar this mish-mash kaleidoscope of pointlessly strung together scenes, for no other reason than there is probably a chapter in the book that says it is there. Salman Rushdie's highly amateurish scripting coupled by equally bad school-teacherly reading (yes, he was supposed to be narrating but he was just reading in a raspy-voiced poorly way) add to the woes of this atrocious adaptation.Just like to an over earnest student who tries hard but you know darn well will just not achieve much, you have no choice but remark "hard worker" ….. similarly you can tell the director, cast and crew did put in the effort (which is what the 3 stars are for), but the result is just abysmal daytime soap nonsense.Putting on a trite cartoonish caricature of Indira Gandhi just smack of childish selfish vengeance - another big big minus. I have not read the book, but the impression I HAD is that it would be one of mystical and mythical wonders …. this movie just damn killed all of that. The book I believe is driven by narration and imagination … all killed dead now and flushed down the midnight sewer.

I'll make it brief. It is understandable that the lowest ratings came from the USA. The Indian sub-continent is exactly 1/2 way around the world or about 23hrs flying time (in the air) from NY. We don't get much exposure to this culture as say the UK, NZ or Australians do. Here in the US this culture is associated with newsstands and taxicabs, pity actually. I have been there several times for extended periods and appreciate the people and culture. This gives one a different perspective. I thought the Historical perspective, Love story, and dream sequences were wonderfully interwoven. Wanna hop on a plane to Delhi right now!

I watched Midnight's Children today. Salman Rushdie's book is one of my all-time favorites and I went into the theater with unabashed excitement and even a bias in the favor of the movie I was yet to watch. Most people will find the movie interesting; I doubt that many would label it 'great'. Even when you make the allowance that it is hard to recapture the magic of a great book on celluloid, it is easy to see that the task Deepa Mehta set herself was near-impossible to achieve. Salman Rushdie's book is a sprawling tale of magic-realism that weaves many incidents together on a large canvas. The attempt to replicate it in a two-hour plus film necessitates a jerky journey that hurries from one incident to the other, just managing to retain seamless coherence. In some ways the movie is like life itself – you know that there would be an ending though not every peak and trough clearly point in that direction.There is also the problem of depicting magic-realism on this medium. The story is so inextricably intertwined with India's post-Independence history that one begins to seek fidelity in every detail. And not only does the film give accuracy a short shrift; the surrender by Pakistani troops comes across as a minor function at a school with the Indian General dressed indifferently, Major Shiva is not only a war hero (and one who appears during the surrender ceremony and in the presence of his Generals with his cap carelessly shoved under the shoulder flap) but is also in-charge of demolitions of slums and hovering around the country's Prime Minister. The movie's many switches to 'magic' are somewhat less than credible. To be fair to them, this is a 'flaw' that the makers perhaps could not have escaped – it is one thing to see magic in, say, Harry Potter where all else is magic too and thus very much 'acceptable' to the subconscious and quite another to be confronted with bits of sudden magic when one has recently settled down to realism. I must point out that I had not felt this disconnect when I had read the book, some three decades ago. In the movie there are two completely contrasting tastes competing for the viewer's palate with the obvious outcome. Before I go any further, I recommend the movie both to those who have read the classic and those who have not. The experience for the two groups will be absolutely disparate, I suspect!Most of the performances are good and Seema Biswas as the guilt-ridden nurse who starts it all by switching babies is noteworthy. But both the redoubtable Anupam Kher as the father and Rahul Bose as a Pakistani General are forgettable caricatures. The point about the destinies of India and Pakistan being inseparable comes at you, loud and clear. And in his voice-over Salman Rushdie underscores the point in the end that our Republic has not kept all the promises that were made at the stroke of freedom. Perhaps, when we are seized by joy and optimism, such becomes the nature of promises we humans often make to ourselves.

Midnight's Children, that mammoth book written by Salman Rushdie which all English Literature Undergraduates are forced to read and marvel at, finally gets a long-awaited film adaptation. Having read the book many years ago, I never imagined anybody would be bold enough to actually film the text, with all it's magical realism and grand sweeps through the course of history, so let's see how this goes...Telling the story of Saleem, born on the stroke of Midnight on August 15th 1947 i.e when India finally became an independent nation, whose life is altered from the minute he is born, as he is given to the wrong parents, rich parents, and thus afforded a life of luxury that he was not destined to have. On top of that, he has magical powers (that aren't that great to be honest), and finds that every child born at Midnight on August 15th also has magic powers, it's like the Power Rangers: India. What thus follows is a story narrated by Rushdie himself, as Saleem's life links and progresses with the historical and political turmoil taking part in India throughout the century, ( Partitions, Civil Wars, States of Emergency), and Saleem, much like India at the time, struggles and battles to find out his own identity.The film does well in scaling down the content of the novel, it's more of a drama with bits of comedy, than a grand epic or fantasy, and parts do feel rushed as the viewer is transported from year to year without any sense of anything really linking together, despite the valiant attempts of Rushdie narrating the whole story. However, it is still a film that does manage to vividly depict a fascinating period in history with lots of very visual scenes that leave a lasting impression, and more importantly, it links it all together with individual plights, to add that emotional intensity. So overall I'd still recommend it.7/10