CANNES DIARY DAY 5

Any day that includes filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and actor Deepika Padukone has to be a good one. I sat down with Deepika just a few hours before she left for the airport to return to Mumbai and Chhapaak. Her red carpet style has created quite the stir with Vogue USA and Variety giving it the thumbs up.

“You either come here with a film,” she told me, “or you slay on the red carpet.” Or as Variety put it – you go big or you go home. Deepika also added that now that Cannes was done, she was already moving back into the character of Laxmi, her role in Chhapaak.

When I asked her why she doesn’t bring Ranveer here, she said he would be a better fit at the Met Gala. At Cannes, she would top him!

Pain and Glory is Almodovar’s 21st film.

This semi-autobiographical film is a rumination on cinema, love, relationships, pain and the merciless passage of time.

The wonderful Antonio Banderas plays a filmmaker Salvador Mallo, who hasn’t created a film in a long time. The film moves between his childhood memories and present day when Salva is battling depression, back pain, a new fondness for heroin and loneliness. Pain and Glory is bittersweet. At one point, I found myself tearing up. It’s also visually stunning with lush colours and fluid transitions between memories, dreams and fantasy.

Another wonderful film I caught is Michael Covino’s The Climb, a buddy comedy like no other you’ve seen before. It begins with two friends bicycling – one is getting married, the other admits to sleeping with his fiancée. The Climb has wonderful performances, inventive writing that will make you laugh out loud and dazzling cinematography. In fact, I think a producer should buy the remake rights because it would make for a solid Hindi film!

I also participated in the Rocketman junket today. The film based on the life of Elton John got a standing ovation at Cannes. I spoke with Taron Egerton, who plays Elton John, director Dexter Fletcher and actor Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays Elton’s mother. After the interview finished, Dexter told me that he saw Kal Ho Na Ho in Delhi and loved it. Dexter finished Bohemian Rhapsody and now has put his singular vision into Rocketman — the song sequences (one has a touch of India) are spectacular!

I’m hoping tomorrow will be warmer — today everyone shuffled around in the cold and the rain. On the red carpet, however, the weather was irrelevant. Women dazzled as always. That’s what I call a commitment to duty.