This Hindi movie is a pretty straightforward slice-of-life story that tries to give a modern look at what it's like to be a single, professional gay man. It dives into how he understands who he is, the chances he missed out on, and the personal choices he’s made along the way. The director used three parallel timelines to tell the story, which honestly didn't make much sense to me. While the core idea was actually pretty interesting, I really feel like this would have worked way better as a short film considering the point it was trying to make. Still, it wasn't a bad watch. The plot centers on Rachit, a city professional, and his friend Shikhar as they hang out for an evening. Rachit is a polished, urban guy, while Shikhar has more of a "small-town" rustic vibe, and you can really see the contrast between them when they talk. As the night goes on, Rachit starts thinking back to some old memories from a long time ago. He remembers being an intern after college in ...
Starting with home, Stephen Fry starts in his home country, talking to gay icons Elton John and David Furnish. This was the couple who inspired Stephen to be open about his sexuality as well as many others. He then travels to Uganda, where the government was considering, and in January 2014 implemented, a new law that would make homosexuality a capital crime — putting gay people to death for their sexuality. He then travels to US, a country quite famous for all sorts of 'conversion therapies'. He talks to a therapist and also with a former patient, after which he tells us that for all the talk of his successful conversions, he was unable to find one of his ex-gays to talk to us. Episode 2 starts with Brazil, where one gay person is murdered every 36 hours, and interviews Brazilian anti-homosexuality politician Jair Bolsonaro, who sadly is now the president of the country. Fry also visits Russia and speaks with politician Vitaly Milonov, again to meet with similar responses about homophobia. He finally travels to India, where he thinks things are getting better. He covers the ostracism of hijras community in India, but is happy to see the middle class educated Indians at least doing well.
Unlike most other countries, Fry doesn't talk to any political person in India, where it is more to do with culture and religion. In Russia and Brazil, it was more about the government clamping down and making some very very strict rules against LGBTQ people and their stories. Uganda had some of the most horror stories. I am personally privy to some of that, because when that law was passed I was visiting the country for work and had to be flown out on the first available flight, fearing repercussions of my co-workers knowing about myself sexuality. Interestingly, the minister of ethics and integrity in Uganda almost threatens to have Stephen arrested for his views. Some of the conversations that he has with political people across Russia, Brazil and Uganda are so absurd that they don't make any sense. The, claiming that gay people are out there to recruit, promote homosexuality etc was bizarre to the core. And of course when people like these come to power, one can only imagine what goes on. A nicely made documentary ends well with a very relevant statement "Homosexuals are not interested in making other people homosexual, but homophobic people are definitely interested in making other people homophobic". (6/10)
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