From Piku to Tanu Weds Manu Returns: The hype of star ratings and celebrity tweets

Three weeks and three major releases. Critics, Twitter bots, ticket-buyers and that portion of the Hindi film industry not gagged by the code of omerta and diplomacy, have been united in agreeing that: A. Piku roxx!! B. Bombay Velvet WTF!!! C. OMG Tanu Weds Manu Returns is sure shot hit (and also Kangana roxx roxx). *Also Mad Max: Fury Road is most awesome movie EVAAAAH!!! It is now universally acknowledged that every time a halfway decent or spectacularly disappointing film hits our screen, social media (mostly Twitter) starts frothing at the mouth. The centrifugal force that powers this vortex of opinion is the army of writers, directors, producers and actors who are active on Twitter. [caption id=“attachment_2263340” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kangana Ranaut. IBN Live[/caption] Now if there is a national crisis like a drought or a corruption scandal, this is a tribe notorious for not having an opinion. However, since a film release is ghar ki murgi, the fervour of the tweeting is matched only by the decibel of it. After six years on Twitter, I have now developed a radar for these things. Around the time of a film’s release, if my timeline is spammed with the kind of hyperbole that Buzzfeed could hypothetically use as a headline, then odds are that the film is not irredeemably awful. So, around Thursday last week, Deepak Dobriyal presumably left all other work and started retweeting the well-deserved praise that was coming his way for his stellar portrayal of Pappi in Tanu Weds Manu Returns as a full-time occupation. By the weekend actors like Dhanush, Rajkummar Rao, Huma Qureshi and director Karan Johar had also tweeted their vociferous approval of the film.

#TanuWedsManuReturns what a lovely film! Ms. Ranaut u r simply the finest! And Maddy, what a finely nuanced performance! Loved it!!!

— Lara Dutta Bhupathi (@LaraDutta) May 24, 2015

More from Entertainment

Who is Anuparna Roy, the filmmaker who made history by winning Orizzonti Award at the Venice Film Festival? 'Malaika Arora had differences with Salman Khan over her outfit in Dabangg, they are conservative Muslims,' reveals Abhinav Kashyap

Tanu weds manu returns is a perfect family entertainer.@aanandlrai strikes d right chord yet again.kangana at her very best. Congrats team

— Dhanush (@dhanushkraja) May 22, 2015

Saw #TanuWedsManuReturns OUTSTANDING!Respect @aanandlrai #Kangana @ActorMadhavan #Deepak and the whole cast.. best film in a long long time

— Huma Qureshi (@humasqureshi) May 21, 2015

#KanganaRanaut you are the best actor we have in our country.PERIOD.I m totally in love with ur beautiful performance.Keep inspiring us #TWM

— Rajkummar Rao (@RajkummarRao) May 21, 2015

Just saw " Tanu weds Manu returns " outstanding film !!! One of best films in recent times. Hats off to the entire team. BLOCKBUSTER !!!

— Arbaaz Khan (@arbaazSkhan) May 21, 2015

This was clearly not the automatic praise that is doled out politely to keep professional bridges standing. These were genuine adjective-laden, exclamation & emoji-filled thumps on the back. A similar thing had happened with Shoojit Sircar’s Piku when Deepika Padukone and Irrfan started re-tweeting the fulsome praise coming their way for their superb performances as Piku and Rana in the film. There are quite a few critics in this country who I like to read and whose opinions I respect a lot, but such is the level of back-stabbing and rivalry in the film industry, that when an actor or a director praises another contemporary, I am doubly convinced that this performance or film may potentially kick some serious butt. And it happens with clockwork immediacy. Within an hour or two of the press screening of a film, the Twitterverse will indicate if the film is worthy of dragging one’s arse through heat, dust and penury to plonk it in front of a giant movie screen. It is, of course, just an indicator of which way the film wind is likely blowing. There is no genuine insight or critique in any of these tweets. It is basically a conveyor belt of synonyms of the words ‘amazing’ or ‘disappointing’. But by the time I have seen the third ‘teaser’, second ‘trailer’ and the four songs from the promo package, I have an embryonic idea of whether I’m going to watch it. Couple that with the Twitter shrieking and I have enough information to decide whether I want to step into a theatre or not. The sad fallout of this is that most critics are now reduced to one more voice on the sidelines, cheering or booing the film. Short attention spans and crowded movie slates have reduced film reviewing to two transactional questions: One, is the film paisa vasool? Two, how many stars? Both these questions result in the misplaced notion that the film critic is now a stand-in for the audience, whose only qualification is that he/she gets to see the film before they do. How good a critic is gets measured against how well their verdict syncs with that of the general public. According to approval-hungry media houses then, a film critic is merely a human barometer that pre-emptively and accurately measures public opinion about a film. This is probably the reason that Rahul Desai’s lovely review of Tanu Weds Manu Returns in Mumbai Mirror got unceremoniously ‘upgraded’ yesterday. Desai gave the film 2.5 stars and wrote a well-argued piece on the film. Clearly the public loves the film much more than Desai did, as demonstrated by the Rs 38 crore it grossed in its opening weekend. At which point Mumbai Mirror possibly felt it would be nice to retrospectively hike only the star rating to 3.5. Please note that his entire review stands as is. It is only the stars that Mumbai Mirror wanted to fiddle with. The tabloid hasn’t officially clarified their stance, but it probably knows that the average reader does not have the time to comprehend a review that gently teases out the layers in a film. The easiest way then, to appease any perceived dissonance is wave a wand and tack on a couple of stars. Presto! Everything is awesome! In his review of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, the New York Times’ A.O Scott says of the director: “At 70, he has a master craftsman’s intuitive sense of proportion and a visual artisan’s mistrust of extraneous verbiage.” Now it is only once I saw the film that the line fully impressed itself upon me in all its glory. Similarly, in his review of Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Bharadwaj Rangan says: “Rai is the anti-Zoya Akhtar. He thinks in Hindi. This isn’t just about the great lines dripping with ghee (I howled when a translator went from “[night]club” to “Gymkhana”), or the rooted, small-town atmosphere. It’s that his reference points are all from Hindi cinema." Again, only after I saw the film, did Rangan’s point pop like a lightbulb above my head. Neither Rangan nor Scott use star ratings in their review. Even though critics have been decrying the tyranny of star ratings for a while now, to do away with it could signal the death knell for the profession as it stands today. (Editor’s note: Rubbish. Firstpost doesn’t do star ratings and we’re alive and kicking, thank you very much.) Here is an easier solution: give out the star rating first and release the full review a day later for post-viewing consumption. For those who read reviews only to figure out if they should watch a film or not, a star rating is functional enough. If they want to seek out a more informed way of making sense of the experience of watching a film, they can return for the actual review later. Maybe a truly great review, like the post-coital cigarette, is best consumed after doing the deed.