3 Moving Pictures to Move Hearts

Hi everyone!

Hopefully everyone's having a nice Tuesday evening :)

For me, Friday night usually entails bouts of laziness and an unusually elevated mood after couch surfing (not a great habit, but I know there are some of you who identify with this club :p). Often, I enjoy watching movies with my family or going out to grab a bite at the tiffin restaurant near our house if we are all in the mood on Friday nights. But there's one thing that almost always happens- movie marathon!

Ever since its birth in 1895 France, movies have been a haven for a multitude of spheres of human life- most often for entertainment, a career, (not to mention the go-to for finding a new celebrity crush) and especially for the start of a multimillion-dollar industry that is booming in today's time. But beyond this, movies also have an alternate purpose that we often make use of but may overlook- it gives us an opportunity to bond with people around us and discover future friends who share similar interests. They can also serve as a playful map through which we can also teach ourselves a lot about life, and the different positive and negative aspects of it that we may or may not be aware of yet. They open up a place where cherished memories can be created and saved in our mind's archives.

For most of us, these moving pictures have been a companion as we grew up- fun memories of watching movies with our family and friends at a theatre while joining in with the energetic cheering and whistling that welcomes the first entrance of our favorite lead and second lead actors (especially Rajnikanth movies!), or while wrapped up in the thickest blankets with the lights off, with the TV's bright screen making up for a cozy theatre at home.

Most Indian movies are musicals- there are generally about 4-5 songs written and composed specially for that movie that may take up a good half hour of the total running time, but these also become beloved melodies that play forever on our lips until the next big movie comes out.

I often enjoy rewatching some of them, if they really struck my heart- whether it was the message that it had aimed to pass onto us as the audience, or if it was surprisingly comedic, or the storyline was really imaginative and moving. Something about rewatching our favorite movies and TV shows makes the storyline, the characters and the actors so much clearer, relatable and appreciated. Today, I wish to share some of these movies that have left a permanent impression in my memory, and ones that I have (undoubtedly) rewatched countless times.

1. English Vinglish (2012)

This heartfelt, memorable Hindi film follows the story of Shashi Godbole, a mother and chef-entrepreneur who goes through a life-changing, unexpected experience of realizing her self-worth and commanding well-deserved respect through that realization when she travels for the very first time to the United States to visit her sister's family for her niece's wedding, without knowing the English language.

The film also portrays the open disrespect and humiliation she faces from her own family members, especially her husband and daughter who taunt her because of her extremely poor knowledge in English, and her preference and comfort with their mother tongue Hindi. However, in the movie, she makes use of opportunities she never thought she would take advantage of, through which she meets people who help her become aware of her self-worth and encourage her to conquer what she thought was impossible and learn the language, which opens her eyes to the definition of a true family and how conflicts in family can always be overcome if we have the clarity and courage to face them openly, together.

(Tried so hard not to give any spoilers here :))

2. Tourist Family (2025)

This one's more recent- this Tamil movie captures the story of a comedic Sri Lankan Tamil family who migrate from Sri Lanka and enter the southernmost Indian state of Tamil Nadu to begin a new life. The family consists of a couple with two young boys whose story is laden with loads of laughter and tears, accompanied with the quietly veiled danger of being discovered as illegal immigrants. It's actually a simple feel-good story, that combines the various challenges that a family faces, both as individual members and as a team, coupled with coming-of-age scenarios, and the effect that the entry of this family has in their neighborhood that make this movie a must-watch for people of all ages.

Along the way, the movie works along a silent dynamic- on the quiet, humble power of kindness, and how the kindness that you give to the people around you no matter the way they treat you, always comes back to you tenfold, helping us realize the importance of a single act of kindness and empathy.

3. Million Dollar Arm (2014)

I watched this pretty late, maybe around a year back when it popped up on our Disney+'s recommendations back in India. The film is originally in English and is a thrilling true story about the discovery of the first Indian baseball pitchers in the history of America's baseball league. It takes us to the elite home of sports agent J.B. Bernstein, who comes up with the idea of travelling to India to find talented cricket players who can be transformed into baseball pitchers who would be recruited by major American baseball league teams. This idea was born out of an effort to save his deteriorating career, and it takes him, his partners, as well as Indian teens Dinesh and Rinku, and their companion Amit on a journey that gives them a second chance to think about the purpose of their lives, the underestimated importance of friendships and relationships that are vital to human life, and adapting to life outside a culture of your and how understanding these cultures gives a different outlook to life.

These movies were ones that helped me learn and watch in action the things that we will come across in our lives, and also how a movie isn't just a platform for entertainment and joy, but rather how it is a form of art that has proved instrumental in capturing stories of reality and imagination that all have a takeaway which we can implement in our own lives, as the stars of our stories, and how our loved ones, and most importantly ourselves, are the ones congratulating and celebrating both our achievements and downfalls, cheering us on and helping us lift ourselves when they happen. It's a path to teaching important values and morals that we need to have in our minds, and other times it is something that gives you a good laugh to lighten our moods on rough days, or catch a good time with friends, penning memories to fondly look back on!

P.S. I had to put in a lot of effort to hold myself back from giving any spoilers, so make sure to check these out if you haven't (and even if you have, rewatch it hehe)! See you next week :)