Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in English
Nominated for Best Live Action Short at the 97th Academy Awards, Anuja is written and directed by Adam J. Graves, produced by Mindy Kaling, and executive produced by Priyanka Chopra. The 22 minute film is now streaming on Netflix.
ANUJA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Anuja (Sajda Pathan), an orphaned young girl who lives on the streets of New Delhi with her older sister Palak, is a math wizard who has the opportunity to attend a boarding school that could change her life forever. The sisters work at a garment factory for low wages and devise a plan to sell the bags that Palak secretly made with spare fabric scraps to raise money for Anuja’s school entrance exam.
What Will It Remind You Of?: The action on the streets of Delhi will probably immediately bring you back to Slumdog Millionaire, but the hopeful narrative might remind you of the excellent Hindi film Taare Zameen Par about an autistic boy and his life-changing teacher.
Performance Worth Watching: This is Sajda Pathan’s first acting role and she’s immediately magnetic and endearing. Pathan is a real life working child on the streets of New Delhi, and she brings a beautiful amount of lived-in feeling to the role while also imbuing the story with the laughter, innocence, and hope of childhood dreams.
Memorable Dialogue: The film begins with a story about a mongoose that does everything in its power to save the child of the family it lives with, even going so far as to slay a snake that threatened this equilibrium. The voiceover tale sets up Anuja as a story of resilience and redemption as the titular character embarks on a new journey.
Sex and Skin: Nothing to see here.
Our Take: Anuja’s premise is extremely simple, forcing the amateur actors associated with the nonprofit Salaam Baalak Trust to carry the film—which they do. Pathan’s young face carries so much emotion, while Ananya Shanbhag, who plays Palak, excels at being both Anuja’s caretaker and a child herself. It’s the bond between the two sisters that cements the film’s message as they both sacrifice today for the hope of a better tomorrow.
The other characters that populate their lives—including a buffoonish manager at the textile factory and a calmer bespectacled man representing the school—appear as caricatures that perform exposition for the film: the former asks Anuja to perform a complicated mental math problem, while the latter announces the entire stakes of the film at the outset. These actors are fine, if occasionally slipping into some over-the-top performances.
My main grievance is that Western awards bodies only seem to acknowledge poverty-related Indian stories instead of the large swath of films that come from the subcontinent and its diaspora. (One of last year’s Oscar nominees, To Kill a Tiger, centered on gendered violence in rural India.) It’s hard to say that these stories aren’t worthy of being produced or that they aren’t vital to showcase, especially if we want to change these patterns, both in India and the rest of the world. But I struggle with it being the only representation to a large portion of the world.
But Anuja’s power is in its message, which is overwhelmingly one of hope and the capacity to change situations that often feel daunting and hopeless. While Graves doesn’t hit viewers over the head with his views about child labor, there are subtle moments that convey his POV: Anuja lies about her age at the factory; the greedy factory owner tries to divert her to his personal bookkeeping; and the promise of a boarding school that hangs over the film really feels like something that could be life changing for these girls. This feeling of hope is the one that takes over the film, leaving viewers feeling uplifted rather than sad about the girls’ circumstances.
Our Call: STREAM IT. With a simple premise, Anuja offers a bright narrative in a short run time.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&appId=823934954307605&version=v2.8”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
