Shukla Kumar, wife of Rajendra Kumar and mother of Kumar Gaurav, passes away; prayer meet to be held on January 10

Shukla Kumar, wife of legendary actor Rajendra Kumar and mother of actor Kumar Gaurav, passed away recently. The news has left the Hindi film fraternity and admirers of the Kumar family in mourning. A prayer meet in her remembrance will be held on January 10, as confirmed by close sources. While Shukla Kumar largely stayed away from the public eye, she was a central pillar in one of Bollywood’s most respected film families. Married to Rajendra Kumar, fondly remembered as “Jubilee Kumar” for his unmatched box-office streak, she witnessed the rise and transitions of Hindi cinema from close quarters. Her quiet presence remained constant through the highs of stardom and the inevitable shifts that followed. Her son, Kumar Gaurav, entered the film industry with one of the most sensational debuts Bollywood had seen. His 1981 film Love Story, opposite Vijeta Pandit, turned him into an overnight star and remains one of the most successful debut films in Hindi cinema. The actor was briefly hai...

Drift review – beautiful yet undercooked character study

Sundance film festival: Cynthia Erivo stars as a west African migrant who befriends Alia Shawkat’s American émigré in this too-quiet character drama

Save for its few flashback moments of horrific, haunting trauma, Drift, the mostly quiet story of a west African migrant reeling from the unimaginable on a Greek resort isle, is easy on the eyes. Director Anthony Chen’s film, from a screenplay by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, gives harried aftermath the sheen of tranquil nobility, resilience hiding in plain sight – the crowd of barely clothed, languid white bodies dotting star Cynthia Erivo’s opening walk down the beach, the bleached yellow of the Mediterranean sun, the way Erivo’s Jacqueline slowly, carefully washes her one set of clothes. Even Jacqueline’s night ritual, arranging plastic bags of pebbles for a makeshift beach cave mattress, takes on the lulling rhythm of a reverie.

It’s a lot of compelling aesthetic, anchored at most turns by Erivo’s committed, tense performance, that like many a Sundance movie can only cover so much undercooked structure. Drift, based on Maksik’s 2013 novel A Marker to Measure Drift, relies on Jacqueline’s trauma-fragmented memory to unfold the story too slowly. For the first half hour, Jacqueline is mostly a cipher, scrounging for money via beachside foot massages by day, flitting through shadows and dodging bigoted police by night. We catch tantalizing snippets of her clearly suppressed past in too-short flashbacks – a time when she had long braids and a white British girlfriend (Honor Swinton Byrne), a time when she lived in England, a joyful moment with her privileged minister’s family in militarized Liberia. The script’s spareness – what year is it? How did Jacqueline get here? Why is she so alone? – provokes equal parts mystery and frustration.

Drift premiered at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution.

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