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It’s hard to get a cellphone signal up in the high mountains of Himachal Pradesh, in Northern India. Especially in the dead of winter when deep snowdrifts absorb all sound and jagged encircling ridges form an impenetrably icy barrier. But without WiFi coverage, Subhadra Mahajan’s spectacular and serene “Second Chance” suggests, a different, deeper kind of connection is possible — to these stark, unearthly landscapes, to the people who’ve made their lives among them, and perhaps even to the self you might have lost touch with through trauma or tiredness, down in the busy, noisy world below.
Twenty-five-year-old Nia (Dheera Johnson) is feeling estranged from herself when she takes refuge here. In a startling juxtaposition, Mahajan cuts from a black screen over which audio of an anguished voicemail plays to Nia gazing out over a stunning black-and-white vista of mountain crags riisng up from a frozen valley basin.
Twenty-five-year-old Nia (Dheera Johnson) is feeling estranged from herself when she takes refuge here. In a startling juxtaposition, Mahajan cuts from a black screen over which audio of an anguished voicemail plays to Nia gazing out over a stunning black-and-white vista of mountain crags riisng up from a frozen valley basin.
- 7/6/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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The setting of Subhadra Mahajan’s feature debut may be chilly, but the vibes are warm. The aptly titled film revolves around Nia, a depressed young Indian woman who leaves Delhi and escapes to her family’s Himalayan summer retreat in the dead of winter to recover from a trauma. What she experiences there belies both hers and the viewer’s expectations, in a location so icily beautiful that the region may well experience a surge of tourism. A feel-good film in the best sense of the term, Second Chance is receiving its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
In the film’s opening moments, we hear a frantic phone call cluing us in to Nia’s turmoil — namely, that she’s taken abortion pills after getting pregnant by a boyfriend who abandoned her and is desperate to keep the secret from her parents. Cut to a shot of Nia (Dheera Johnson,...
In the film’s opening moments, we hear a frantic phone call cluing us in to Nia’s turmoil — namely, that she’s taken abortion pills after getting pregnant by a boyfriend who abandoned her and is desperate to keep the secret from her parents. Cut to a shot of Nia (Dheera Johnson,...
- 7/3/2024
- by Frank Scheck
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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Debutant filmmaker Subhadra Mahajan’s Second Chance (2024) is a gentle portrait of a young woman’s exploration of love, death, and the resurgence of hope. It centers around a protagonist who shrinks her mental space and tries to refuse the reality that eats her up from the inside. The evocative story follows a single, pregnant woman coping with abandonment by her boyfriend. Enhanced by a mournful score and naturalistic approach, the film seeks depth in a simple yet hopeful tale. This lends the story a certain simplicity, bringing it further into the realm of a humane tale and offering a thoughtful exploration of human relationships without overshadowing its primary focus. Mahajan’s storytelling style, which is slow-paced and introspective, can be seen as having a blend of deep affinity and detached observation. Instead of deeply immersing the viewers in the protagonist’s emotional struggles through melodrama, she approaches it with a detached yet empathetic observation,...
- 7/3/2024
- by Dipankar Sarkar
- Talking Films
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