Minmini Movie Review: How much guilt is too much guilt, asks Halitha Shameem in her newest film, Minmini. How one deals with guilt and remorse varies from person to person; Minmini takes us through the lives of Praveena (Esther Anil) and Sabari (Pravin Kishore), who have a contrasting approach to dealing with sorrow.

Praveena and Sabari meet as adults while riding to the Himalayas in their Royal Enfield. While Praveena soaks in each moment of the trip and pauses to marvel at what she sees, Sabari keeps riding and focuses on reaching the destination. In contrast to Praveena, he values the destination more than the journey.

Quite early in the film, while Sabari is in school, a teacher asks the class what they want to be. The answers range from fashion designer to singer but the only two answers that cannot be limited to just naming one profession were Sabari’s and Pari’s. Pari is the popular boy at school, whereas Sabari is the studious one. Both of them do not instantly get along due to them being so different from one another and their interests being different. But, along the way, Halitha takes us through the mind frame of two teenagers.

Minmini is one of those films that has a first and second half that are so tonally different from each other. It is already well known that the schooltime portions of the film were taken in 2015, while the portions where the characters have grown up have been shot more recently. So, it benefits the flow of the film that the story is told in a linear format rather than cutting between the past and the present.

Will the film have the same impact if the same actors hadn’t played their grownup versions? Maybe yes. But the tonal change in the second half would have been more evident if other actors had been cast for those parts. But Halitha doesn’t rub it in our faces that she has shot with the same actors over a period of years. Rather, the story naturally unfolds along the way in an understated way.

While the school portions are more out there and animated, the grownup portions are soothing. Also soothing is Khatija Rahman’s understated music, which goes well with the tranquil nature of the film. All in all, Minmini is a refreshing film in the current Tamil cinema setup. It’s both emotional and humane and except for a few forced humour scenes consisting of the character of a Malayali teacher, Minmini has a novelty that we hardly see in films nowadays.

The film explores an otherwise unexplored topic like survivor guilt and calls for pursuing our passion and being ourselves. But it does so without seeming preachy or draining. The film comes into its own in the second half when the seeds planted in the first half are delved into. Just like Praveena and Sabari, we, the audience, also feel like we have been through a journey by the end of the film, as we travel from a secluded boarding school to the soaring heights of the Himalayas.

Esther Anil, Pravin Kishore and Gaurav Kalai make us care for their characters. The former two actors’ fun banter is amplified by the natural chemistry that they share with each other.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems the variety of movie options in theaters this summer is as barren as my love life. So the superhero comedy Deadpool & Wolverine has appeared like an oasis in a bland, monotonous desert this season for a lot of people (including me). Now that I’ve reached this oasis, it didn’t totally quench my thirst.

After the excitement of the first two Deadpool films from 2016 and 2018, Ryan Reynolds (Free Guy, 2021) is back in the red & black costume playing the wisecracking mischievous mercenary. This second sequel starts with our swearing, sarcastic anti-hero working at a used car dealership and wearing a toupee. But his ordinary civilian boredom stops when he’s recruited by a government office called the Time Variance Authority to travel through the multiverse and save another universe from destruction. But instead of following orders, Deadpool decides to save his own universe from approaching oblivion and goes to a few other universes to recruit a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, Logan, 2017), who’s still alive, for some reinforcements.

So let me be honest, that explanation might not be totally accurate. I’m still hazy on some of the details in this film, because the exposition at the beginning is so long and so convoluted. There’s special technology for Deadpool to travel through the multiverse. There’s a naturally dying timeline that can’t be reversed. And one of the bad guys has built a machine called a “time ripper” capable of destroying entire universes! It felt like the team of five screenwriters (which includes Mr. Reynolds) was desperately grasping for an interesting story to even allow this film to exist. So with the horribly shoddy premise to work from, Deadpool & Wolverine is almost dead on arrival.

But Ryan Reynolds’ spirited performance keeps this film somewhat fun. Like the two previous films, he gives perfectly timed jokes filled with raunchy bluntness, sexual innuendo, and real-life jabs at the 20th Century Fox and Disney movie studios. But, of course, this style of humor is not new for this film. All Deadpool fans have seen these sorts of jokes before. This film’s biggest boast, or biggest draw for viewers, is its long list of surprise appearances by famous actors playing mostly forgotten comic book characters. That part is entertaining, and the dirty adult humor had me laughing, or silently in shock, multiple times in the movie theater.

Hugh Jackman, sadly, is given nothing to do but repeatedly grumble unhappily, kill lots of people, and look tiredly in every direction. Maybe because Ryan Reynolds has worked with this director before on the action films The Adam Project (2022) and Free Guy (2021), they had too strong a rapport with each other to let Hugh Jackman in on more fun. (This director I’m referring to is the Canadian, Shawn Levy.)

By the time the fourth, large scale, extended, bloody fight scene started near the film’s climax, I thought, “Okay, boys. I’m ready for my lobotomy now.” With a runtime of two hours and eight minutes, this one could easily have been a minimum of 20 minutes shorter. As the 34th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), I walked away from this one thinking it was just okay. Not a disaster….but merely satisfactory. And aren’t we done with the MCU now? Is anyone else ready to move onto new frontiers?

And earning $211 million in its opening weekend has reminded us there’s apparently still an audience for these flashy, bro-centered, R-rated, superhero adventures. But not for viewers under 17 of course. (Wink wink!)

Boot Camp is our new obsession! Gina Musa’s book hits our screens in a faithful adaptation of her novel that is much more than meets the eye. The film is a story of self-empowerment and discovering your own path even in the worst of circumstances. Ready?

Here we go! 

Feeling Seen in Boot Camp

Boot Camp seems at first glance like a typical young adult romantic comedy. However, it’s much more than that. It’s a film about discovering your own power and embracing it to ultimately find yourself. The romance is just the icing on the cake, one that we love, but it isn’t the focus and that makes it all different. 

Don’t get us wrong, this writer is always here for the romance. I’m a hopeless romantic and grew up during the golden age of the genre. Name any rom-com from the 90s and 2000s and I will have watched it too many times to be considered healthy. But despite this, I never felt represented in any of them. 

The protagonists of these movies were not like me. They were not clumsy or the outcasts of their class, they were not bullied or felt alone. Usually, they were successful women or beautiful teenagers with the perfect body to be a model. They simply put on makeup, dressed better, took off their glasses, and were the kind of beautiful women that only existed in magazines. 

Whitney, the leader of Boot Camp, feels like me at just her age. A clumsy girl, who feels invisible, who has to endure bullying from her classmates, and who even her friends seem to look down on. And with that, Boot Camp had me won over. 

The Message Makes the Difference  

But I was even more impressed when I realized that the film perfectly reflected Whitney’s growth from an insecure woman unaware of her own power to an empowered one who values ​​herself enough to not settle for less than being herself and going for what she wants. 

What happened to me with the romantic comedies of the 90s and 2000s is that I tried. I tried to put on makeup and suddenly the mirror would reflect that magazine woman but I couldn’t do it. And I didn’t do it not only because life isn’t like the movies, but because I was only putting on makeup on my outside but, inside, I was still that insecure and clumsy girl who didn’t value herself enough.

What Boot Camp does is take that insecure, clumsy girl, who tries to take up as little space as possible and hates being the center of attention, and show her how much she is worth, making her discover her own power and that, that is invaluable. 

This is the reason why the film is much more than a young adult romance: for the message it sends. I saw myself reflected in every step Whitney took, every fear, every insecurity, every fall… but also in every time she got back up and was ready to fight for herself. 

Boot Camp talks about self-empowerment, body positivity, and above all, about finding your own path even when you don’t believe that path exists. And that is exactly what makes the difference.

Back to the Golden Age of Romance…with a Twist

Although Whitney is the central focus of Boot Camp, the film shows us the emotional journey of the characters around her, especially Axel. He is a man who has his own trauma to overcome and avoids thinking about it every day. 

He likes his job as a coach at the camp because it not only allows him to train the students hard to explore their own limits but also gives a sense of order and routine to his life. 

That job keeps Axel from thinking about his past and, suddenly, Whitney arrives and breaks all his schemes. She is a beautiful, committed, fighter, somewhat shy woman, and a born leader. Only she doesn’t realize all that and doesn’t see herself as he sees her. However, Boot Camp flees from the hackneyed cliché and what attracts Axel to Whitney is not her vulnerability, but her strength, her power. 

Little by little, working together, they begin to get to know each other. As Whitney finds and embraces her power, Axel feels more attached to her. The two of them fall in love little by little, without realizing it, without expecting it, and almost without wanting it.

Their love didn’t come immediately, but through hard daily training, jokes on the beach, games in the water, and conversations by the light of a campfire. And that makes it even more special, even more unique. 

Boot Camp builds to the perfect moment for the climax of the first kiss between Whitney and Axel and, just when it happens, Axel takes a step back. He doesn’t feel ready to be in a relationship because of his past but, the reality is, he’s scared. Axel is afraid of what he feels for Whitney, of the intensity of everything they are living, and he is aware that, if he takes that step, he will never be able to separate from her. 

Faced with this new and unexpected rejection, Whitney’s wounds that were just beginning to heal reopen and old insecurities return. And everything seems over between them… until Axel decides to stop running away and fight for her. The two meet in the middle of the road. Whitney and Axel get the happy ending they deserve and our romantic hearts are pumping at a thousand miles an hour.

Boot Camp‘s Great Supporting Characters

Beyond Whitney and Axel’s journey, Boot Camp has some great supporting characters with many different edges like Willow, Aspen, and Martina. 

At first, Willow is Whitney’s nightmare. She bullies her, makes fun of her, and seems proud of her behavior so when the two meet again at the camp, sparks start to fly right away. But, as we get deeper into Willow’s story, we discover much more than just an abuser in her. 

Her relationship with her mother is not ideal and, as Whitney embraces her own power and Willow’s mother notices her, Willow feels jealousy for the first time. She always felt like she wasn’t living up to her mother’s expectations and now she’s seeing how someone she made fun of is doing so. This doesn’t justify Willow’s attitude but we can understand where she’s coming from. 

Everything Willow is going through changes her perspective on her actions and, while she and Whitney don’t become the best of friends at first, they end up getting closer and admitting that they have a lot more in common with each other than they like to admit. Everything finally comes together in Boot Camp and they end up being friends. 

As for Aspen and Martina, they quickly become best friends with Whitney. But, apart from that, they find each other and begin to explore the feelings that are born between them. 

And, while the film doesn’t focus too much on this lesbian love story, it does perfectly portray the initial insecurity and doubts of it and, above all, it gives them a happy ending, something that is difficult to find on our TV when it comes to an LGBTI+ couple. 

In conclusion, Boot Camp is a film that is much more than it seems and that we recommend! Personally, as I had the opportunity to tell Rachel and Drew in an interview that we will publish soon, after Bridgerton season 3, this is the second time I felt truly seen on my TV. And that is tremendously powerful and one of the reasons why everyone should watch this movie.

Boot Camp is available now in select theaters and on demand.