Freedom At Midnight Review : A Slow-Paced Detailing Of Partition

RATING - ⭐⭐✨ 2.5/5*

Freedom At Midnight Review Movie Talkies:

Freedom At Midnight takes you into the behind-the-scenes of the politics that shook multiple empires before India got its independence. There is another story, Pakistan, of course. So basically, Freedom at Midnight is not all about India's independence but also has almost half of its plot explaining Pakistan's independence. Over the years, many films and stage dramas have told us that it was Mahatma Gandhi and his Congress who were responsible for the partition. Now, this is our side. But on the other side, Jinnah was solely responsible for the birth of the nation. Freedom At Midnight shows you the entire politics in a slow-paced drama, but this is perhaps one such rare show that tells us about Nehru and Patel being more responsible for the partition than Gandhi. From Nathuram Godse's point of view, it was Gandhi who made the partition happen after swearing on his own dead body, and maybe that's why he had to pay. Does that suit you? Was Gandhi really at fault?

Based on Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, the series delves deeper into the freedom fight of India, particularly from the political angle. Mahatma Gandhi (Chirag Vohra) appoints Jawaharlal Nehru (Sidhant Gupta) as the new chief of the Congress party, while the majority of votes have elected Mr. Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel (Rajendra Chawla) as the new president. On the other side, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Arif Zakaria) is calling himself the sole spokesperson of the Muslims in the nation and wants a separate nation, "Pakistan." Nonviolent Mr. Gandhi opposes that, and then Jinnah creates a religious ruckus all over the nation that forces Patel and Nehru to think otherwise. What Gandhi wanted; how Nehru and Patel took over; how Jinnah was solely responsible for the partition; how Lord Mountbatten and his wife got involved in all this so personally; and many more questions. You'll get all the answers in this series.

The 7-episode plays with a flashback trick every once in a while, taking viewers back to the past, such as Nehru's first meeting with Gandhi, Jinnah's humiliating defeat in 1936, Jinnah introducing Gandhi and then Gandhi calling him a minority leader, Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, Chauri Chaura, and a few other incidents. There is hardly any mention of extremist vs. moderate groups, but there is a constant mention of violence vs. nonviolence, mostly caused by Jinna's provocative speeches. This came to me as a shock that Mr. Gandhi was put on a backseat, whereas over the years, most of the brief notes have kept him as the front runner. Patel's clear-cut thinking was known already, so it wasn't surprising at all. However, Nehru's confused state of mind as the president of Congress and then his closeness with Lady Louise looked pretty bad. The character development took a lot of time, actually more than what it deserved in any case. Jinnah's brutal exploration, Liaquat's supportive nature, and Menon's civil-services mindset helped a lot to overcome the whitewashing of Mountbatten and his wife's images. It's hard to believe that they cared so much about our nation despite their own political and personal agendas. Let it be. I leave such judgments to the audience rather than keeping it personal and calling them propaganda. 

Speaking of performances, I wasn't quite happy with the prosthetics in the beginning, but later on, all of them started looking like the characters they were playing. Sidhant Gupta, Chirag Vohra, and Rajendra Chawla are the top performers here, and they get the maximum screen time, deservingly. Arif Zakaria is Jinnah and a deadly one, I guess. I just don't like that regular coughing, since it's too outdated as a trick to showcase an ill person now. Rajesh Kumar has done fine, Luke McGibney and Cordelia Bugeja were good, Ira Dubey was decent, and K.C. Shankar and the rest of the supporting cast have done strictly okay.

Freedom at Midnight fails at screenplay more than any other thing, to be precise. 7 episodes and still the middle portion drags; that's enough to tell my point. It happens with almost every web series nowadays, but those fictional stories have to rely on such loose theories, whereas FAM was based on facts, so it shouldn't have dragged like this. The design was decent and could have been better, and the same goes for the background score, which reminds you of Sony LIV's own Rocket Boys. The cinematography was pretty okay, but I was expecting some spine-chilling frames for scenes of riots and high-voltage drama.

Nikkhil Advani has enough experience to understand that he cannot support one side while handling a historical drama, but here, he plays overly safe. This is more of a Congress series than Gandhi's series or India's political freedom fight. We all have different versions of the story because we have been told in such ways, so it's difficult to believe one story. The same happens with Advani's story, but it's quite possible that this was too honest and politically perfect. However, the pattern in which the narrative unfolds historical events is not that effective. Those powerful scenes and dramatic moments are missing, making it a decent and moderately average series. Watch to spend 5 hours in your school books or what your school books didn't teach you.

Also read : Vijay 69 Review: Absurd & funny tale of passion at 69