Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 22

You Never Heard of Me Issue #5 Review

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

New powers, new friends, and ever-evolving visions make William, the young soothsayer protagonist of the comic-book series “You Never Heard of Me,” wish he were ordinary. But since that’s not possible, he fully embraces his supernatural abilities.

Issue #5 of “You Never Heard of Me,” by Iolanda Zanfardino and Eliza Romboli (art), begins with moody, dark panels, with William resolving that he is not going to give up on trying to change the futures of those he loves for the better. So this final chapter of the comic is all about friends, family, and making the best of the present.

The artwork and palette slowly keep shifting from grim tones to brighter panels, reflecting the evolution of William’s story through the pages. After brief dark moments of self-introspection, he has a serious heart-to-heart with his dad and once again plays Cupid for his busy-bee sister, after which he has his first fun sleepover with new friends Allie and Rory. And what about “Mission Save Rory from Dying”? You will have to read the series to find out.

This issue of “You Never Heard of Me” is less than 25 pages long; however, creators Iolanda Zanfardino and Eliza Romboli manage to tie all the loose ends in the story in this swift closing chapter. It feels all too surreal, but the plot emphasizes how focusing on little gestures of love, support, and kindness goes a long way in changing someone’s life. The focus isn’t on William’s seer-like powers, but on how simple human experiences can influence the course of someone’s journey.

Rory starts out as a lonely kid, bullied for being “different”; however, just by hanging out with him, Allie and William brighten up his days. The comic-book panels showing the friends having fun together are joyously drawn, and a whole page is just colorful Polaroid-like photos of the trio doing makeup and goofing around.

For a teen-fantasy comic, “You Never Heard of Me” is a fast-paced, beautifully drawn series that brings William’s story full circle. While the first chapter started with him sitting alone by the beach, worrying about high school, the story ends with him once again by the beach, but this time with his dad, happy and looking forward to the future. A stunning sunset in the background and glimpses of a happy horizon end the tale.

Rating: 4 stars on 5.

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‘Ambush’ Short Animated Film Review

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

Space warfare is the stuff of science-fiction fantasy for now, but this far-off dystopian reality is artfully imagined in ‘Ambush‘, a short animated film by Xi Chengzhuo.

The four-minute film follows a scout in space, waiting for enemies that never come, but death draws closer with his depleting supply of oxygen. In its short runtime, the story succinctly captures the tragically theatrical absurdity of war, no matter where it’s fought: on land, air, water, or in space. The protagonist waits for enemies we never see and faces a much higher chance of dying from lack of supplies than from an ambush by the other side.

‘Ambush‘ made me think of Robert Graves’ World War I memoir Goodbye to All That (because I recently read it), where he vividly recalls how several soldiers don’t die by enemy bullets or bombs, but due to other unfortunate, and sometimes bizarre, circumstances. For instance, a senior soldier dies while demonstrating how not to use a grenade to his juniors, only to shockingly die when the bomb explodes accidentally in his hand.

The animation design in ‘Ambush‘ is simple, fluid, almost dreamy; belying the terrifying circumstances the protagonist finds himself in. For a moment, you can’t tell if he’s having a nightmare and hallucinating, although the situational ambiguity only makes his ordeal even more grim.

“Are we going to die for nothing?” he desperately asks his sergeant, a question soldiers have been asking for eons. A somber twist at the end gives ‘Ambush‘ a wistful close, leaving viewers with several questions. But depending on how you read the film, you might either feel satisfied or wish it had been longer. Regardless, this is an excellent little student film!

You can watch ‘Ambush’ on YouTube, it’s also embedded below.

‘Good Boy’ Episode 10 Review: Demoted, Dazed, Dong-ju’s Got Plan B

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“I am down but not out.”

The special investigation team consisting of former Olympic athletes is finally disbanded in the action-drama “Good Boy” (this was due for a while, it’s a surprise they managed to last this long). However, boxer-cop protagonist Dong-ju (Park Bo-Gum) doesn’t know how to give up, and his demoted duties doing community service errands don’t stop him from pursuing his quest for justice and vengeance against Min Joo-Yeong (Oh Jung-se), the primary antagonist of the series.

Recap of ‘Good Boy’ Episode 9: Min Joo-Yeong and his ruthless goons manage to steal back the drugs right under the police’s nose after a violent face-off with the Special Investigation Team. Officer Han-na (Kim So-hyun), however, sneaks into an enemy truck and ends up trapped near a dock, where the criminals plan to ship the drugs. Dong-ju and Jong-hyeon (Lee Sang-yi), with help from their team, track her down. More violence follows as the trio is cornered by a horde of thugs. The episode ends with Jong-hyeon being shot in the shoulder and falling into the sea, leaving viewers anxious about his fate. There’s also considerable suspense of Dong-ju’s health, as he keeps getting dizzy.

Titled “Time-Out”, Episode 10 of ‘Good Boy’ thankfully skips the flashbacks and jumps straight into what happened to Jong-hyeon. We already saw he was shot in the shoulder, so despite the scare, death seemed unlikely. Dong-ju and Han-na rush him to the hospital, and the episode, true to its title, largely serves as a filler, focusing on the immediate aftermath of the special team getting disbanded. Everyone returns to their former roles in the police department, except for Dong-ju, who is assigned to special community duties, mostly consisting of menial errands.

In what’s a very small victory for the team, villain Min Joo-Yeong is finally forced out of his customs job, although he continues to be unfazed and has his criminal businesses to run. This episode also features several flashback scenes that add depth to the main characters. Viewers get a glimpse of Dong-ju’s turbulent past as a struggling student and how Man-sik (Heo Sung-tae) played a pivotal role in shaping his boxing career. While Man-sik has mostly served as comic relief in “Good Boy”, despite being the team leader, this episode reveals his more empathetic side as a guiding figure in Dong-ju’s life.

There’s also a brief flashback to an incident from Han-na and Jong-hyeon’s life shortly after their breakup. It feels somewhat contrived, but with these small crumbs from the past, the show seems to be building up expectations for a deeper explanation of why they split. However, since Han-na is positioned as Dong-ju’s primary romantic interest, a full account of her past with her ex seems unlikely, even though Sang-yi’s character is nearly as genuinely nice as Park Bo-Gum’s Dong-ju.

Oh well, “Good Boy” is a Park Bo-Gum show, and deservedly so. The actor is pure charisma as the cute-but-aggressive boxer with a golden heart. He is brave, fearless, cheerful, optimistic, and basically every other adjective you can find for a “nice guy.” But now that it’s been revealed he has a serious neurological condition, watching him fight the bad guys brings fresh anxiety for viewers. Toward the end of the episode, we get more action scenes, all of them unreal confrontations between Dong-ju and hordes of thugs. Like I wrote previously, dude’s like Wolverine, but with a shorter expiry date (seriously, if he dies at the end of “Good Boy”, I’m going to be so pissed).

Overall, this was an entertaining edition, where the primary team of cop characters gets to take a small breather from violence, even if not voluntarily. But towards the end, Dong-ju comes up with a crazy new plan to hurt Min Joo-Yeong and starts causing some serious damage to the nefarious criminal mastermind. The episode ends with an exciting scene of Dong-ju trying to take on an entire ring of baddies, leaving viewers with the promise of more blood, sweat, and hopefully no tears.

Watch Good Boy on Prime Video.

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Semi-Soeter Review: Diaper-Laden Corporate Chaos

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

Anel Alexander and Nico Panagio reprise their roles from the 2012 rom-com ‘Semi-Soet’, playing Jaci and JP once again. But this time, they’re already married and confused about having a baby.

‘Semi-Soeter’ opens with a chaotic scene of Jaci Basson and JP Basson babysitting the five children of their best friends, Hertjie (Louw Venter) and Karla (Sandra Vaughn). It sets the tone for the rest of the comedy, where the lead couple borrows their friends’ baby to win over a deal with a big baby-products brand. However, what if their competitors find out they aren’t the real parents of the child?

The best thing about ‘Semi-Soeter’ is the fun, laid-back cast, all of whom have an easy, relatable chemistry. Anel Alexander and Nico Panagio look great as the high-functioning, workaholic, ambitious corporate couple, too busy sealing million-dollar deals to think about expanding their family. The Bassons are wealthy and well-settled (at least their two swanky luxury cars indicate so), and don’t have much holding them back except their shared fear of children. As the plot progresses, both seem to waver in their opinions about the issue, even though they do not express this to each other.

Sandra Vaughn is hilariously endearing as Karla, the mom of five kids, more than happy to lend her baby to Jaci and JP so she can have a child-free weekend, with the rest of her older kids staying with their grandparents. For a comedy trying to convince its protagonists that becoming parents isn’t as hard as they think it to be, ‘Semi-Soeter’ sure doesn’t make it look easy either. Instead, parenting seems comically chaotic, messy, and something you’d want to steer clear of. Although the babies in the film are incredibly cute!

Hélène Truter plays Marietjie, the flamboyant owner of Ybab, the baby brand everybody is keen to win over. When the Bassons arrive at a corporate event where they’re supposed to compete with a few other companies for the Ybab contract, they find out their top rival is Joubert (Neels van Jaarsveld), JP’s college nemesis. Joubert is the comical villain of ‘Semi-Soeter’, married to Chadrie (Diaan Lawrenson), and they have three seemingly perfect kids. Ironically, they really do seem to have their children under better control than most. When Marietjie is impressed by the Bassons’ adorable (but fake) baby, Joubert takes it upon himself to expose the fraudster parents.

‘Semi-Soeter’ is a semi-funny film, formulaic and familiar, with potty jokes like chocolate sauce being served in nappies at the Ybab corporate event. It’s both gross and yet oddly plausible in the real world. I mean, there are plenty of toilet-themed restaurants serving poo-shaped food in miniature toilet bowls, so why not desserts-in-diapers, eh?

If watching an overachieving couple struggle through their dilemma over kids while they disastrously babysit and pretend to be parents for corporate goals sounds fun, give this a go.

Rating: 5.5 on 10. ‘Semi-Soeter’ is on Netflix.

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‘Good Boy’ Episode 9 Review: Team Dong-ju Bleeds But Fights On

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Drug demons, Russian baddies, Japanese Yakuza, and corrupt top officers within their own ranks: ‘Good Boy’ Dong-ju (Park Bo-Gum) and his little team of athlete-turned-cops are practically against the world in the Korean action series at this point.

Recap of ‘Good Boy’ Episode 8: Dong-ju and the Special Criminal Investigation Team disguise themselves as a quarantine unit to inspect shipping containers and track down drugs belonging to villain Min Joo-Yeong (Oh Jung-se). Their mission is a success; however, unknown to them, Joo-Yeong sets a fresh trap, deliberately letting them learn of his plan to steal the drugs back. Han-na (Kim So-hyun) and Jong-hyeon (Lee Sang-yi) are leading the transport operation of the seized drugs when they’re ambushed by armed goons.

Dong-ju and Man-sik (Heo Sung-tae) are also violently attacked while on their way to help Han-na and Jong-hyeon. The same goes for Jae-hong (Tae Won-seok), whose police car is overturned by criminals. The episode ends with lots of action, blood, and violence, with the police officers dangerously overwhelmed by Joo-Yeong’s men. The cops get battered to a pulp, but rise with Wolverine-like grit, because no regular human survives that many punches and stab wounds.

Titled “Allez”, Episode 9 of “Good Boy” begins with a flashback to the Olympic event where Jong-hyeon was injured in his eye, a glimpse of which was shown to viewers in the last episode as well, to explain his fear of needles and knives. This time, the flashback is slightly longer before the scene shifts back to the present, where all the primary characters are fighting for their lives against the bad guys. All the officers of the Insung Metropolitan Police Agency are directed to control a staged protest against the Mayor, an event used as an excuse to deny backup to Man-sik’s team.

Unfortunately, bad guy Joo-Yeong once again emerges victorious, stealing back his drugs right under the police’s nose. However, Han-na manages to sneak into a truck, so the primary focus of this “Good Boy” episode is on Dong-ju and Jong-hyeon teaming up to track her down and bust the drugs. It’s a tense, violent edition, paced well, with plenty of suspense over Han-na’s fate, since she sneaks in all alone into practically the devil’s lair.

While the tone of this edition of “Good Boy” is largely serious, the investigative efforts of the team to find Han-na is also peppered with some humorous moments. It’s low-key funny to watch the love-rivals uniting to fight the villains together, and the onscreen buddy-chemistry between Park Bo-Gum and Lee Sang-yi is entertaining to watch. Both men try to upstage the other, but without any malice, showing a protective team spirit towards each other while dealing with thugs. The quick-witted Han-na on the other hand thinks on her feet and leaves clues for her colleagues to find her, very Hansel-and-Gretel style, which is humorous.

The final minutes of this edition is once again packed with intense action and suspense, ending on a worrying cliffhanger that puts the life of a crucial character in jeopardy. With seven episodes still to go, it’ll be intriguing to see how the team brings down the antagonist Joo-Yeong, who, at this point, seems almost exaggeratedly invincible. Actor Oh Jung-se is pitch-perfect as the ‘Bad Boy’ foil to Park Bo-Gum’s ‘Good Boy’ Dong-ju. With both the Mayor and the Police Commissioner in Joo-Yeong’s pocket, ragtag group of cops have an uphill task of turning the tables in their favor.

Watch Good Boy on Prime Video.

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Cleopatra and Frankenstein Review: Monstrously Boring

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

There’s a dude called Frank, and a gorgeous greenish-eyed girl called Cleo, they meet at a New Year’s Eve party, joke about their names sounding like pop culture figures ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’. Then they hook up, get married, sort of fall in love, run through some trouble. Because, boohoo, life sucks. And don’t be misled by the title, this is a straightforward, contemporary fiction romance.

Page 121, it was only until I got to page 121 of ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ that it finally got readable and interesting. That’s when author Coco Mellors finally introduces a new and realistic character in a world cluttered with unbearably pretentious ‘good looking’/’glittering’ people. Until then it took me 12 days to get to page 121, and only 1 day to finish the rest of the over 200 pages. Until then, I was softly crying inside, and loudly bitching to my friends in a group chat about how books like these slow down my reading pace and reading goals for the year. Until then, this book was barely one star out of five. Now I am settling for 2 stars, which by Goodreads standards is supposed to mean ‘it was okay’.

‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ is simply about a stunningly beautiful, ‘Roman Goddess Level Gorgeous’ (the author repeats this fact several times through the book) Cleo, a 20-something art graduate, hooking up with 40-something Frank, a successful advertising executive, and them referring to each other as Cleopatra and Frankenstein maybe 4 times in the book. The two quickly get married for Cleo’s to extend her visa and stay on in New York. But as is with rushed marriages based on physical attraction, they realize their ‘love’ isn’t the lasting kind of love. And the book follows them being unbearably pretentious (I am aware I’ve already used this term, but well, the author keeps repeating stuff in the book too) and annoying.

Cleo becomes a bored, whiny, artsy brat who doesn’t even make art anymore, and that’s supposed to be her character arc, fine, but nothing about her is likable, except for her legendary looks. Meanwhile Frank drowns himself in work and alcohol and starts to fall for someone else. You know that character from page 121, she is a 30-something and joins Frank’s work-place as a temporary copywriter. Let’s just call her ‘Page 121’, to keep this review spoiler-free, in case you decide to read the novel, despite my criticism. And of course, there’s a high chance you may like it more than I did. Frank and Page 121 have an easy chemistry and their banter in the second-half of ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ is quite witty, funny, and entertaining.

Coco Mellors’ writing style for the novel is mostly reader-friendly. It’s not impressively literary, lucid, or characteristic, the sentences are well-woven, but without any striking details. Although, it does seem like ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ is laden with deliberate familiar philosophical musings meant to encourage readers to share as ‘quotes’. For instance, Page 121 has a lovely relationship with her mother, but her mum often talks like a ‘self-help book’ author, instead of a regular maternal human being.

Except for Page 121, and an obese chef trying to lose weight, everybody is exceedingly good-looking in the book, which is usually their defining characteristic. For instance, Frank’s young step-sister Zoey, is a drop-dead gorgeous aspiring actor, and unlike Frank, she is black-american. Zoey is essentially Cleo in a different skin color, and seems to exist in ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ only for token black representation. She is still in college, lives like a rich trust fund kid, and gets aggressively worked up over racial issues even though she never faces any sort of discrimination in the novel.

‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ aspires to be a Jazz age literary novel for the 2020s: it’s all about sex, drugs, alcohol, money, parties, infidelity, and beautiful people doing annoying things. Thankfully, some of the primary characters do ‘grow up’ towards the climactic chapters, or at least pretend to, and Coco Mellors wraps the story in a conveniently closing chapter that doesn’t match with the rest of the tone, but will be satisfactory for many readers.

Rating: 2 stars on 5.

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‘The Many Deaths of Nora Dalmasso’ Review

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

In November 2006, 51-year-old Nora Dalmasso was found murdered in her house in a gated community in Río Cuarto, an Argentinian city. Early reports revealed she was strangled to death with the belt of her bathrobe after consensual sex by an unknown perpetrator. At the time of her death, her doctor husband Marcelo Macarrón was out of town playing golf, their 20-year-old son Facundo Macarrón, a law student, was out partying with friends, and 16-year-old daughter Valentina Macarrón was studying in the United States. What followed her death was a media frenzy over the ‘crime of passion’, turning Dalmasso from victim into a target of rabid moral policing and sensationalist scrutiny.

The three-part Netflix true-crime documentary ‘The Many Deaths of Nora Dalmasso’ by Jamie Crawford follows how the murder case played out in the courts and media, where both the authorities and some section of the media seemed intent on pursuing convenient theories instead of looking for concrete clues and evidence to nab the killer. The title emphasizes the horrid fate for Nora Dalmasso, first murdered by an unknown person, and later by relentless character assassination in the media.

Nora’s family addressing the media (Netflix)

The documentary features detailed testimonies of Nora Dalmasso’s family, including husband Marcelo, Facundo, Valentina, along with interviews of journalists, lawyers, forensic experts, legal experts who worked on the case. The first episode of ‘The Many Deaths of Nora Dalmasso’ is titled ‘The Crime’, introducing viewers to what happened on the night of Nora’s death, while the next two titled ‘The Accused’ and ‘The Trial’ reveal who emerged as primary suspects in the case and how the law took its course in the case. Some of the twists in the case were no less than a Hollywood thriller, leaving the public often in shock.

There’s file footage from old TV news reports that show the media relentlessly hounding the Dalmasso family, following them to Nora Dalmasso’s grave when they were taking teen Valentina to see her mother, because she wasn’t able to make it back to Argentina in time for the funeral. Dozens of reporters follow the family right up to Nora’s grave, while the kids beg them to give them some privacy. That footage made me feel ashamed as a former television journalist (sure, it’s not the first time, but I am glad I haven’t become insensitive to these things yet), to see the family being hounded for quotes while they’re trying to grieve their mother.

Thanks to the relentless media coverage of the case, Jamie Crawford and his team had no shortage of archival footage for their documentary. The series places strong emphasis on how the media sensationalized the case, contrasted by interviews with Nora Dalmasso’s children, who speak candidly about the emotional toll the coverage took on their lives. However, the documentary offers little insight into how the investigators actually pursued leads or built the case. Strangely, it even mentions a new suspect who emerged much later, without ever naming them, leaving viewers to search online for more information. You can read this article on ‘People’ for more details on the latest suspect identified by the authorities in 2024.

Overall, as the narrator puts it, the three-part documentary serves as a mirror to the dysfunctional society and justice system we live in. Nearly two decades have passed since Nora Dalmasso was murdered in her own home, and the case still lacks a conviction. At one point, a local painter was arrested as a suspect, triggering spontaneous protests across the city, with citizens accusing the authorities of scapegoating a poor man to close the case. The Macarrón family, portrayed as wealthy and well-connected, appeared untouchable. Yet when the victim is a woman, class boundaries seem to vanish, and justice remains out of reach for Nora Dalmasso.

For international viewers unfamiliar with the case, this Netflix documentary offers an intriguing, even if incomplete, look at one of Argentina’s most scandalous crimes.

Watch ‘The Many Deaths of Nora Dalmasso’ on Netflix.

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‘The First Time I Never Met You’ Short Film Review

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Time-travel films will always make viewers wonder, “If you could travel back in time, what would you change?” The sci-fi short film The First Time I Never Met You quickly explores the paradoxical problems of rewinding time: you might go back to fix a problem but end up creating a bigger one.

Written and directed by Eric Kole, the film follows a grieving scientist, John (also played by Kole), who is working hard to crack the key ingredient to time travel. He has lost his wife, Esme (Renee Bailey), and desperately wants to turn back the clock to change his family’s fate. But when he finds himself in the past, on their first date, things don’t work out the way he intends. While John is armed with the knowledge of their future, for Esme, he is a stranger, a first date that creepily knows too much.

The title ‘The First Time I Never Met You’ may give away a crucial twist, but at 13 minutes, it’s a swift, engrossing tale about love, loss, and accepting life as it is. Despite the limited screen time, Renee Bailey lights up the frame as Esme, and it’s easy to see why a workaholic scientist like John finds it difficult to survive the vagaries of life without her radiant presence. But by becoming obsessed with time travel, he misses out on father-daughter moments with his lovely kid, and going back in time only jeopardizes his future family further.

The cinematography is charmingly simple, the storytelling straightforward, and the lesson sharp: living in the present is better than exhausting yourself over ‘what might’ve been?’. If you’re a sci-fi fan and a fan of short films, check this out.

You can watch ‘The First Time I Never Met You’ on YouTube, it’s also embedded below.

‘Ball Boy Tactics’ Serves Soft Sports Romance With Few Fouls

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

A shy retired Olympic athlete falls for his university’s basketball star but struggles to act on his feelings, scared of the consequences if it became public knowledge in K-drama ‘Ball Boy Tactics‘.

Directed by Kim Eun Hye (Why R U?, Jun & Jun), the eight-episode show is adapted from the web novel Ball Boy Tactics (볼보이 택틱스) by Ji Seung Hyeon. It stars Yeom Min Hyeok as popular gymnast Han Ji-won, who quits at the height of his career to join a photography major, where he meets and falls for Kwon Jung-woo (Choi Jae Hyeok), the campus heartthrob. As if surviving campus life as a celebrity athlete wasn’t tough enough, Ji-won has a harder time navigating his feelings for Jung-woo, who seems cold and aloof at first, but surprisingly starts to reciprocate his romantic interest.

Actor Choi Jae Hyeok resembles a shiny, handsome manhwa prince, tall, striking, with sharp features, while Yeom Min Hyeok is short, cute, and petite as Ji-won. Due to the public scrutiny he constantly faces, Ji-won overthinks everything, has low self-esteem, and often projects his own insecurities onto others. Jung-woo, meanwhile, is the more confident, straightforward, assertive character in ‘Ball Boy Tactics’, with a promising basketball career.

The lead pair’s onscreen dynamic is reminiscent of the couple from the Korean romance ‘Cherry Blossoms After Winter’. While the stories are completely different, the protagonists share similar personalities. ‘Ball Boy Tactics‘ is almost as fluffy, largely remaining a not-too-serious campus romance, where most of the drama and heartache stems from Ji-won’s lack of social skills and romantic experience.

Comic relief in the series is provided by Jung-woo’s close basketball BFFs Seung Jin (Choi Rak Yeong) and Eun-oh (Kwak Gun‑hee). Choi Rak Yeong is the most animated character, a big fanboy of Ji-won, he is loud, mischievous, and super chatty. It’s hinted that Eun-oh has more than platonic interest in Seung Jin, however, this sub-plot isn’t fully explored, leaving plenty scope for a ‘Ball Boy Tactics’ season two, even though it’s rare to see shows in this genre get another installment. But then if ‘Color Rush’ could get a part 2, so can this.

With only eight episodes that are about 30 minutes long, ‘Ball Boy Tactics’ isn’t able to explore Ji-won’s social paranoia properly either, so his character feels quite overbearingly slow at points. It’s hard to tell if the creators specifically directed Yeom Min Hyeok to portray Ji-won this way, because his performance is almost sloth-like: the character is slow to react to everything, as if his brain is loading a page on Internet Explorer in 1999. His personality therefore fluctuates between endearing and annoying.

The cinematography is bright, with a breezy palette, although the background music is used quite sparingly, so a few scenes feel awkward without the usual K-drama tonal flourishes dictating the mood in the back. On the other hand, the minimal use of music also enhances some of the natural ‘first love’ awkwardness between the lead pair.

‘Ball Boy Tactics’ steers clear of overused BL tropes, there’s no clumsy stumbling into each other or exaggerated fanservice. Ji-won and Jung-woo’s connection feels deliberate, with their romance unfolding through mutual, conscious choices. There’s no dramatic villain here either; the real challenge lies in balancing public athletic careers with the desire for privacy. The series ends on a wholesome note, with just enough left open for a spinoff to explore more.

Overall, ‘Ball Boy Tactics’ is a cutesy campus romance, that could’ve benefited from tighter pacing and perhaps two more episodes to develop the lead pair’s love-story without rushing through it.

Watch ‘Ball Boy Tactics’ on iQIYI.

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No Choice Review: Where Choosing ‘Life’ is a Terrifying Trap

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

Amy is a hardworking young woman, doing two part-time jobs, looking after her ailing drug-addict mom, all while studying for a scholarship to secure her future. But an unexpected pregnancy threatens to jeopardize her dreams. She lives in an American state where abortions are illegal, leaving her with scarily limited options in ‘No Choice’, a psychological horror film which explores the ramifications of having little autonomy over your own body. A problem that’s magnified when you aren’t born with a silver spoon.

Directed and written by Nate Hilgartner, ‘No Choice’ stars Hannah Deale as primary protagonist Amy, who starts to have terrifying nightmares that she’ll die if she doesn’t get an abortion. These nightmares are a manifestation of her living conditions: she can barely pay all her bills, any little medical mishap is a body blow to her meagre savings, and now, with a baby on the way from a random hook-up, her future looks increasingly claustrophobic and bleak.

‘No Choice’ opens with a dream sequence, which almost looks like it could be out of an old Taylor Swift video. However, soon Amy wakes up to get into the daily grind of working at a soulless convenience store job with her colleague Lucas (Robert Denzel Edwards). The story largely unfolds at the store and Amy’s apartment, the limited settings becoming emblematic of her suffocating circumstances. The only escape from these spaces comes in the form of her eerie, ominous dreams, which make the plot work as a psychological horror film. The only thing that seemed slightly odd was Amy’s flat, which didn’t look like a ‘lived-in’ space shared by two people over time, instead seeming like a fresh rental hired for the film.

Hannah Deale portrays Amy with an open vulnerability, shouldering the emotional punches with ease, making the viewer root for her character in ‘No Choice’. She is an introverted girl, with no friends except for her colleague Lucas, who is too self-absorbed in his own world to give her any real support. So, in what could be relatable to many viewers, Amy heavily relies on the advice of online ‘influencers’ on crucial matters.

Jennifer Herzog plays Amy’s drug-addict mother Debra, ironically a devout Christian, completely dependent on her young daughter, yet has the gall to suggest she drop everything and have the baby. Debra, of course, is a strict anti-abortionist, which puts Amy in a moral quandary between choosing herself and an uncertain life with a baby she’d barely be able to provide for. The characters represent two clashing schools of thought… however there’s something amiss in the mother-daughter dynamic.

As an international viewer, a woman at that, I cannot count the times I’ve felt confounded watching American movies, where young female protagonists with bright futures are made to feel like they have ‘no choice’ but to keep a baby from an accidental-unwanted pregnancy, giving you the sense that either the creators are politically motivated, or playing it too safe so as to not upset a certain section of the audience. One of the few films I can immediately think of right now, where a female protagonist didn’t think twice before deciding to abort her baby was the horror film “Immaculate”, and that’s because the baby was literally Satan’s spawn (sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t seen the film). So, in that sense, Nate Hilgartner’s film is certainly a bold and assertive take on women’s reproductive rights, even though there’s considerable suspense over Amy’s eventual fate.

There’s a scene in ‘No Choice’ where Amy suffers a minor cut on her finger, which racks up a staggering over 500 USD bill, which to me was the most surreal part of the film. Treating a wound like that wouldn’t cost more than 50 USD in a swanky private hospital and would be less than 10 in a government hospital in my country. So, the film is a scathing criticism of both the American healthcare system and the alarming state of reproductive rights of women. Interestingly, the film refrains from vilifying men or assigning external blame, choosing to let Amy’s own perspective and resilience drive the story, allowing her internal struggle to take precedence.

As time ticks by, Amy gets increasingly desperate to take decisive action, increasingly like an animal trapped in a cage rigged with spiked walls that are constantly shrinking, meant to kill the captive in the end. Hannah Deale vividly acts out Amy’s despair, anxiety, and psychological breakdown in the second half. The climax is open-ended; it doesn’t offer a conclusive resolution to Amy’s dilemma, closing her story in a wicked twist that leaves both ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ viewers plenty of fodder to debate and rage about.

Just 95 minutes long, ‘No Choice’ ultimately is an unsettling look at the psychological toll unplanned pregnancy takes on young women in places where abortion is illegal and the moral stigma surrounding it even more terrifying.

Rating: 3.5 stars on 5.

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