28 May,2024 09:48 AM IST | Mumbai | Nandini Varma
Nicholas Galitizine and Anne Hathaway in The Idea of You
1 All of Us Strangers, 2023
In 2003, Wayne Lammers brought out an English translation of the Japanese novel Ijin-Tachi to no Natsu (Strangers). A lonely TV scriptwriter decides to visit his childhood home one day where he had lost his parents. When he returns, he develops an intimate relationship with his neighbour. In the book, the neighbour's character is written as female, but director Andrew Haigh takes the liberty of casting a male actor to play the neighbour, opening conversations within the story about gender and sexuality.
Read: Strangers by Taichi Yamada
2 Turtles All the Way Down, 2024
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Pics courtesy/Youtube
At the time of writing Turtles All the Way Down, John Green had spoken about dealing with OCD while growing up. He wrote his mental illness into this novel with a lot of difficulty, creating Aza Holmes, a character who suffered from it, too. Holmes and her best friend Daisy are on a quest for the hefty reward money for finding the billionaire Russell Pickett. However, Holmes ends up falling in love with his son. Her OCD becomes very central in the Hannah Marks-directed film as it had kept her from intimacy for a long time.
Read: Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
3 Cobalt Blue, 2022
Tanay and Anuja, two siblings, fall in love with the same person, who comes to stay as their paying guest in Pune. Readers get to read both perspectives as Kundalkar lays them out through the two voices in his 2006 Marathi novel. The novelist adapted the story for the screen by Kundalkar more recently. It takes us into the heart of a queer relationship unfolding against the background of a traditionally heteronormative and conservative Indian family.
Read: Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar (translated by Jerry Pinto)
4 The Taste of Things, 2023
Depicting love between couples in their 50s (and beyond) is a rarity on screen even today. Set in 1880s France, Tran Ang Hung's film manages to shift the lens and show the tender relationship between Dodin, a gastronome, and Eugénie, his most glorious cook. The film's opening is like a dance, a true feast to the eyes, as one witnesses the workings of a kitchen. What's really special about the film though is that it is a photograph of love caught in the later stages of life, as it strengthens, withstanding many hardships over the years.
Read: The Passionate Epicure by Marcel Rouff
5 Red, White & Royal Blue, 2023
With international relations at stake, the royalty in the US and Britain attempt to sell a narrative of friendship between the first son of the United States, Alex Clairemont-Diaz, and a British prince, Prince Henry, after pictures of their confrontation are published. However, this soon blossoms into a love story between the two men. The film (see left) by Matthew Lopez is a nuanced adaptation of the 2019 novel by the same name.
Read: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
