Movie Review: Game Over

Picture Source: IMDb

 

There is only one word I would employ, in a nutshell, for this movie: Mindblowing.

But since a word is not enough to encapsulate the nuance of any work of art, let me talk a little about why I liked this Taapsee Pannu thriller.

I admit, I thought of watching this movie only because an author friend spoke about it in glowing terms. It’s a Telugu film, but when Netflix offered me a Hindi-dubbed version as a recommendation, I decided to watch it.

I started the first half while doing the dishes, a morning chore on weekends.

But the story held my interest–I stop watching anything that doesn’t captivate me in the first 15 minutes, and Netflix is exhausting in the list of options it offers–so I sat down and finished the movie after the dishes were done.

There are two parallel tracks in this story. One is the story of Taapsee, a game designer who is still struggling to cope with the aftermath of a brutal attack on previous year’s New Year’s Eve. The other is how a serial killer is killing women living alone, decapitating them, and setting the headless bodies on fire.

One, I loved director Ashwin Saravanan’s no-nonsense approach to gender violence, and how it affects the survivors long after the culprit has been punished. The director did his homework well on the psychological trauma of a survivor, without any subtle or overt survivor-blaming or some crap about how survivors with PTSD need to “move on” from the event that changed their lives. Taapsee also embodies the character of Swapna well–she cannot stay in a dark room, and she doesn’t go out on New Year and celebrate but cowers at home in fear, the events playing havoc with her mind. GO highlights how women are constantly blamed for their ordeal, their actions broken down and criticized and their characters assassinated, when it is the culprit whose character must come under fire.

Two, I loved the narration style. While the story progresses independent but disparately connected, I liked how the narrative balances between Swapna’s life and the murders themselves, finally connecting them with a thread that makes sense and drives the second part of the movie.

Some of the scenes are downright scary, but the one to watch for is the climax. It forms a mini-lesson, in my opinion, for all thriller writers seeking to inject an element of shock at breakneck speed into their stories, be it the beginning, middle, or end, keeping the reader on edge, increasing their heart rate, as well as making them wonder about the outcome.

Kudos to Ashwin Saravanan for making a movie which is not only women-centric, but takes their narratives, viewpoints, and experiences in every day life very seriously.

5 stars from my side!