To review or not to review
The reviews of Joker are flying in thick and fast and it takes me back to this specific conundrum. To review or not to review.
In the somewhat pleasant fall of 2015 I reached New York to embark on a long cherished dream of getting trained in Screenwriting. For the next three months, I fretted, strained and furiously wrote and rewrote many times over what would become my first complete screenplay that I submitted as a final project at NYFA.
As I was on the heels of completing this Screenwriting Program, I had a startling realization about being a cinema critic. Not that I was one but back then but I had this habit of running down any film that I didn’t like. The genesis was a blog (rather another blog that went unnoticed) where I diligently reviewed (mostly thrashed) films for close to two years. Starting in Dec 2010, I wrapped up this unhealthy fetish in Sept 2012 by which time I had written 278 film reviews before my work careened over this blog to a much-needed halt.
That didn’t stop me from sharing my ‘expert comments’ on every film that I saw, with my friends and peers in office and after-office conversations. This continued for another three years. All until, I myself underwent that experience of writing a screenplay myself in 2015. I had never till that point of time had this kind of a solitary painful experience of trying to finish a story in the hope of making a few strangers in my class and my professor feel something. Or at the very least, to be respected a teeny weeny bit about the my characters and my story in the final table read with the class.
I still look back on that screenplay as being one of the most difficult things I have ever accomplished. There was no glory, or a finishing ribbon to graze against at the end of it. All it offered were oodles of relief at getting to the finish line and retaining a semblance of dignity in not being mocked by the others.
This whole exercise made me think about how much of a reviewer should I really be. Of some one else’s work that he or she has perhaps also painfully created? Whether it’s a poem, a story, a novel, a painting or a screenplay, how much must we exercise our right to critique and put down a piece of creative output without having one through the rigor of creating something ourselves.
On the other hand, someone wise once said, ‘If there are no critics in our business, all that would be left is advertising.’ That is a pretty powerful argument in favor of critiques and reviews.
My view on this got firmed up only lately. I’ll admit that in the backdrop of those three months in 2015, I have found more empathy with the side of the argument that places less emphasis on critique and more on appreciation. As a result of which, I have now the following three rules in making an assessment of any creative work.
First, if I haven’t paid for it, I don’t give a f**k about how bad it is. I will appreciate it for the fact that you put it out there. (This surprisingly underrated aspect of humanity that bestows such less credit to creators for making that leap from consumption to creation truly annoys me.)
Second, I’ll advocate anything that I have personally liked whether I have paid or not.
Lastly, if I must criticize something, it must be absolutely the pits. When I say the pits I mean if it landed at a 1 or a 2 on a 10 point scale. Even in such a scenario, I won’t go out of my way to tell you how bad it is unless you have asked me what I thought about it.
Like with most things, here’s the irony of this masterful framework that I have put in place; I am generously still reading the reviews to avoid the 1s and 2s.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I find it hard that I should give a 1 star review on anything anymore.
Including my Uber driver.
