The Anupam Kher starrer film about former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, The Accidental Prime Minister, has long captured the public imagination in these politically polarised times. The film trailer was released recently, just a couple of weeks before the release of the film (slated for 11th January 2019). Check out the trailer and some of the reactions to it.
The movie is based on the book The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh by Sanjay Baru, who was PM Manmohan Singh's media advisor and chief spokesperson from May 2004 until August 2008. The book was published in April 2914. It was questioned for the timing of its release and also because it paints the former PM as being subservient to the then Congress President Sonia Gandhi. As such it was denounced as ‘fiction’ by the then PMO. Baru claims that he wrote an empathetic account of the former PM; to show his human side and to explain his political compulsions.
Anumpam Kher plays the titular role whereas Akshaye Khanna plays the role of the PM’s advisor Sanjay Baru. This tweet pays some fulsome compliments to a costar.
Anupam Kher is cast as Manmohan Singh, while Akshaye Khanna plays Sanjaya Baru, the film’s narrator. Suzanne Bernert is seen as Sonia Gandhi, Aahana Kumra as Priyanka Gandhi and Arjun Mathur will be seen as Rahul Gandhi in the film.
There is the strong perception that Dr Manmohan Singh was an academic who was pushed willy nilly into a job he had neither asked for nor liked very much.
Sonia Gandhi’s character is played by German born Suzanne Bernert and in the trailer, her line ‘Ye party ko acceptable nahi hai’ triggered a flood of memes.
This tweet seems to allude to the scene in the trailer where the PM expresses the desire to resign but his resignation is not accepted.
There were plenty of jokes made about the expectation that any movie about Dr. Singh would be a silent movie. This follows the popular election propaganda that consistently portrayed Dr. as weak and silent even when there was the dire need to speak up.
The BJP has tweeted in support of the film, calling upon people to watch the trailer of a “Riveting tale of how a family held the country to ransom for 10 long years.” Many tweets questioned the motivation behind this uncharacteristic enthusiasm displayed by the ruling BJP for this film about a Congress leader.
The thread of a jingoistic, even muscular nationalism seems to run through a lot of recent Bollywood films; several of them helmed by Akshay Kumar as this tweet indicates. We have seen many films about sports stars, Indian military operations and spy stories recently.
Many of the tweeple pointed to the timing of the films with all the patriotic fervour; how many of them are politically slanted and timed to release just before the general election of 2019.
The trailer of The Accidental Prime Minister released along with the trailer of Thackeray. Commentators were swift to make comparisons and draw parallels between the two films.
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