Newton movie release date in usa11/6/2023 This slight ambiguity in the screenplay undercuts what could have been a conventional schmaltzy ending and leaves the viewer wryly bemused.Ĭast: Rajkummar Rao, Anjali Patil, Pankaj Tripathi, Raghubir Yadav Or is it, nothing is as important as following the rules of the game? In this case, the two coincide. How does voting benefit them? “All that changes is the framed portraits of our leaders.” But in the final reels, the film soars from this moral low point to its deeply poignant conclusion that it isn’t how you vote that matters, but that the democratic process is carried out throughout the nation.Ī final showdown between Newton and the commandant comes out of the blue, as tense and unexpected as it is totally absurd, motivated by Newton’s dogged idealism and his realization that nothing is as important as being free to cast your vote. The local tribal inhabitants, who have never voted before, have no idea who the candidates are and don’t even speak their language, Hindi. But it isn’t until word arrives that a foreign journalist is on her way to Newton’s forlorn outpost that voters start showing up - under the same compelling Army escort.Īfter a while, even Newton has to wonder what they are doing there. Marched through the jungle under Army escort, the trio is finally installed in an abandoned one-room schoolhouse where they set up at 8:00 a.m. This idea is soundly rejected by our hero. He announces bluntly that “no one will vote” and they may as well go home the Army will collect the votes for them. The local Army commander Atma Singh (a refreshingly realistic Pankaj Tripathi) informs them that Maoist rebels in the area have already shot one candidate to death and are threatening to disrupt the election. Their first encounter in the jungle threatens to be their last. Both actors offer crucial supporting turns. Accompanying him to make sure everything goes according to the rule book are a local liaison (the savvy Anjali Patil) and a jaded veteran pollster ( Raghubhir Yadav), who knows to bring along a pack of playing cards. Volunteering to help, he is chosen as presiding officer of a remote polling station in the state of Chhattisgarh, reachable only by helicopter. Then Election Day rolls around and the country’s 800 million voters are called to the ballot boxes. in physics, he gets a job as a government paper pusher, soon learning that no file moves without a bribe and that he would be better paid working in a call center. Behind his bland, Forrest Gump-like expression lies a will of steel and a determination to carry out his orders to the letter. Rao plays young Nutan Kumar, who has changed his name to Newton - an unbending government bureaucrat in the making. One wonders if part of the film’s local popularity might be attributed to his heroic vindication of the bureaucrat, that much-reviled figure so common in India, who follows rules with such maniacal precision that it takes all day to mail a package or get a refund. Both exasperating and endearing in the title role, Rao again shows he is a chameleon actor whose gift for poker-faced comedy revs up the figure of a rigid young civil servant. The professional cast is well-versed in ironic social nuance. In Newton, Masurkar ( Suleimani Keeda) and his co-scripter Mayank Tewari choose a different key to tell the story, less fable and more absurdist comedy. It ends up being an exercise in frustration for the idealistic vote-taker. It’s a great story and it has been done before, for example in the 2001 Iranian film Secret Ballot by Babak Payami, where the polling official is a committed young woman who is reluctantly escorted around a desert island by a soldier while she hunts down voters. In a year when the value of democracy has become a worldwide debate, it should stand a good chance of winning votes abroad. Starring Rajkummar Rao ( Shahid, Aligarh) as a greenhorn polling official sent to collect votes in a remote jungle, this smart indie is amusing all the way to its bittersweet conclusion.įollowing a successful festival run that began in Berlin, it has also done exceptionally well at the local box office, grossing nearly $5 million after being selected as India’s Oscar submission. Masurkar’s sophomore feature Newton is how it brings out the best and the worst of the electoral system in the form of an offbeat comedy. India is the world’s largest democracy, a title which, at election time, does not sit lightly on a country of 1.3 billion citizens from multi-ethnic backgrounds.
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