Midnight's Children (2012)

Directed by: Deepa Mehta
Country: Canada / UK

Review: I was never a big enthusiast of Deepa Mehta’s cinema, and after watching “Midnight’s Children”, an adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s book with the same name, my opinion haven’t changed. During its 148 minutes, we follow the narration of Saleem Sinai about his origins and what has been his life since his birth date, which also happened to be the day of India's independence. During the film, we get to know that on that special day, a nurse swapped purposely two babies at birth. One was Saleem, who came from a very poor family, and the other was Shiva, the son of a wealthy couple. Throughout all their lives, in war or in peace, these two men will oppose fiercely to each other. As expected from a Rushdie’s novel, the film is immersed on strong political aspects, including the independence of India and the Indo-Pakistani war. Some moments tried to convey the harshness of wartime, while others stood in a soft drama that was never intense or absorbing. There was also a fantasy side on this film, but the magic showed didn’t cast any spell on me. The stiffness of the narrative along with Deepa Mehta’s extreme delicacy on direction smothered the tense situations, making “Midnight’s Children” less riveting than it should be and very far from the epic that it dreamed to become. Instantly forgettable.