Midnight's Children (2012)

A pair of children, born within moments of India gaining independence from Britain, grow up in the country that is nothing like their parent's generation.

Director:

Deepa Mehta

Writers:

Salman Rushdie (screenplay), Salman Rushdie (based on a book by)

Stars:

Rajat Kapoor, Vansh Bhardwaj, Anupam Kher

4 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rajat Kapoor	...	Aadam Aziz
Vansh Bhardwaj	...	Boatman
Anupam Kher	...	Ghani
Neha Mahajan	...	Young Naseem
Dhritiman Chatterjee	...	Mian Abdullah (as Dhritiman Chaterji)
Kusum Haidar	...	Rani of Cooch Naheen (as Kusum Haider)
Zaib Shaikh	...	Nadir Khan
Kabir Singh Chowdhry	...	Mian's Assassin
Shabana Azmi	...	Naseem
Anita Majumdar	...	Emerald
Shahana Goswami	...	Mumtaz / Amina
Shikha Talsania	...	Alia
Rahul Bose	...	Zulfikar
Hasitha Samarasekara	...	Adjutant
Ronit Roy	...	Ahmed Sinai

Storyline

A pair of children, born within moments of India gaining independence from Britain, grow up in the country that is nothing like their parent's generation.

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Plot Keywords:

children | india | screenplay adapted by author | f rated | factory owner | 

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Taglines:

A child and country were born at midnight once upon a time

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Canada UK

Language:

English Hindi Urdu

Release Date:

26 December 2012 (UK)

Also Known As:

Hijos de la media noche

Filming Locations:

Sri Lanka

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$12,200, 28 April 2013, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$139,644, 26 May 2013

Company Credits

Production Co:

David Hamilton Productions,Hamilton Mehta Productions,Number 9 Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

146 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to the "Sri Lanka Mirror," filming shut down for four days in March as the Iranian Embassy in Colombo objected to author Salman Rushdie's participation. Filming resumed after director Deepa Mehta met with Sri Lanka President, Mahinda Rajapaksa. He, in turn, then spoke with the Iranian Embassy.

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Goofs

When Saleem is getting a hair cut and shave, the prices on the price list are extremely high; 6 Rupees for full shave and 10 Rupees for a hair cut. Considering this happened in 1977, a person living in a ghetto could never afford that. The average salary of a Government clerical position in those days was around 200 Rupees a month and a person living in a ghetto would not have made more than 100 Rupees a month, and Saleem had just come out of prison too.

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Soundtracks

Wee Frolic Winkie
Written by Samrat Chakrabarti
Performed by Samrat Chakrabarti

User Reviews

A bit of a shocker

With Rushdie having written the screenplay and being heavily involved, comments about faithfulness to the book are moot; also, the book is quite stylised and far too dense with detail to be easily converted.

So the biggest problems are thus:

* Technical atrocities

* Clichés layered on thick

* Terrible comedic timing

Firstly, the camera work is all over the shop. Hand-held DSLRs are wonderful bits of technology, but camera shake at certain moments of action is confusing, and a bit shoddy. It doesn't help the pace of the film, which changes at strange intervals.

Secondly, the compositions are banal. It's like they used iStockPhoto for storyboarding, and stuck every visual cliché about India into the shots.

Thirdly, there are moments in the film ripe for black comedy where there is none, and moments where comedy is just jarring. If you're going to mess with established concepts in the audiences' minds, it had better mean something. There is far too much throwaway material in the film.

And it's a long one, at 146 minutes, and could have been much shorter, with more energy, better pace, and of higher quality throughout. To the film's credit, there are production elements very well done; the use of children and animals, you'll be startled to hear, are handled brilliantly. But it's not really enough. It may be just that Salman Rushdie would have been better supervising the screenplay rather than writing it himself, and the film could use a complete re-edit, but it is what it is.