Rushdie can’t cut from his 450-page book and destroys Midnight’s Children in the process
Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children is a storytelling catastrophe.
At two-and-a-half hours long, the film based on Salman Rushdie’s 1980 Man Booker Prize-winning novel, is the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the midnight India gains independence from Britain.
In a “private revolutionary act,” as Rushdie likes to call it, a nurse at the hospital swaps Saleem, son of an impoverished street musician, with another child born into wealth and great expectations.
So Saleem, a boy who was meant to be poor, grows up with privileges that the boy whose life he stole, Shiva, can only dream of. As a child, Saleem discovers he has the special power to bring together all the Indian children born in that same hour and that they each have their own gift.
Shiva is a fierce fighter, and Saleem’s closest friend Parvati is a witch. The children’s stories are inevitably “handcuffed to history,” playing out against the uncertain backdrop of cultural divisions and civil war.
The problem is that by the time we get to this story, we’re exhausted. The tale is buried under an hour of recounting how Saleem’s adopted grandparents and parents meet. Rushdie, who wrote the screenplay himself, makes the fatal mistake of trying to cram the entire 446-page novel into the movie, making it a tedious, unrewarding experience.
Along the way, we’re introduced to an extensive list of characters that are completely forgotten by the end of the film, and this is perhaps where Midnight’s Children’s biggest flaw lies.
By the end, so much precious time has been wasted on introductions to new characters, that we haven’t grown to care for or empathize with the main characters at all. All the moments that are supposed to move us don’t because a connection with the hero just isn’t there.
An all-around bad casting job doesn’t help the situation as most of the cast, and especially the Canadian-born Anita Majumdar who plays Saleem’s beautiful but selfish Aunt Emerald, deliver cringe-worthy, awkward performances, struggling to bring Rushdie’s quirky humour to life on the screen.
The cost of Rushdie’s highly literal, page-by-page on-screen translation is sacrificing a deeper exploration of the best and most affecting stories within Midnight’s Children. What motivated the nurse’s actions? What has filled Shiva with so much rage? There are so many unanswered questions.
The story of the “midnight’s children” is a perplexing one if you haven’t read the source material. The purpose of their meetings, orchestrated by Saleem, is confusing, and the divisions and tensions that exist within the group are never justified. But how could they be when so much time is thrown away on the story of Saleem’s parents who are long gone, and serve no purpose now?
I’d imagine the conflict is tied to the chaos that is India’s political situation at the time, but Rushdie decides to skip over history in favour of unimportant subplots.
Mehta hasn’t completely lost her touch, though; having described the book as “Salman’s love letter to India,” her adaptation of it is a love letter of its own kind.
With bright colours, dream-like visuals, and a fantastic score, she captures the magic and beauty of India’s streets.
This isn’t an unfilmable story. But Rushdie is incapable of being ruthless when he needs to be, keeping scenes that ought not to be there, and leaving out the ones that should. Perhaps it’s his deep understanding of the book that is actually Midnight’s Children’s downfall, keeping him from seeing that some things don’t work in movies.
Tamara Khandaker, Copy Editor
