The Boy with the Topknot (2017) Reviews

• Growing up

  Prismark102017-12-06

  The Boy with the Topknot is adapted from journalist Sathnam Sanghera's memoirs. A Wolverhampton tale of a second generation immigrant who arrogantly thinks he has made his way in life and love on his own terms Sathnam (Sacha Dhawan) is a Cambridge University graduate, a journalist and in love with a young white girl. She wants to him to tell about her to his parents. He is reluctant and ends up losing the girl and eventually his job. Sathnam's mother (Deepti Naval) wants him to marry a nice Punjabi girl. Sathnam never realised what exactly was wrong with his father (Anupam Kher) and why he did not work. His father developed schizophrenia. As he delves further into his family history he discovers that his mum had little choice as to who he married and that her husband had a mental illness which would sporadically result in violent outbursts. Maybe because this drama is condensed into a 90 minute film it never really got underneath the surface. A drama of a journalist who never uncovered his family's secrets. He could not even speak Punjabi. When he finally communicates in a heartfelt manner to his mum, it falls on deaf ears, she can never understand his desperate pleas.

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• A gem

  monishsengupta102017-11-24

  An out of the world performance by Deepti Naval and Anupam Kher. An outstanding tele-film by BBC highlighting the issues that the Indian community can face in UK. The mental health issue which we all try to ignore, try to hide while we tend to mix only within our own community, only within our fellow Indians makes our life harder. The film handles the issue within the Sikh community. For a Muslim, there is another layer of complexity. It is hard hard life out here. I cannot thank enough to BBC for creating this gem of a film.

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• Moving Asian drama

  peterrichboy2017-11-15

  Extremely well made production from the BBC about a young Indian man wrestling with his conscious. Deeply in love with a white English girl, yet unable to bring himself to tell his his family who want him to marry a nice Indian girl. As he tries to bring himself to tell his family this leads him on to a voyage of discovery about his family which he was previously unaware of. Beautifully written by Mick Ford and Sathnen Saghera and terrific performances throughout. Highly recommend 8/10

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• Not sure if the screenplay didnt transfer over to the TV right

  amymytsang2018-01-09

  I was very much looking forward to watching this, as 2016's "my father killed me" was pure drama and the cast in The Boy with the Topknot made it even more appealing. However it was the story or the screenplay that made it confusing to what message Sathnam Sanghera was trying to deliver. At times it felt that it was too jumbled together, he was dealing with a multi racial relationship and then it went in very dark into his fathers mental health which he claimed to not knowing about it then connecting his sister suffering from the same mental health issues. However the best part was when his mother told her story through her friends, this delivered perfect writing. Also it raised my knowledge and appreciation of how families deal with mental health issues. It may have been due to the length of the one off drama it just could not include so much in such short length of time, maybe it should have been a two or three part drama. But also it maybe "My Father Killed Me" rose the bar so high, that I was just expecting much more. Its watchable but it didnt leave me wanting to recommend this as a much watch like "My Father Killed Me"

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• A jumbled story

  qui_j2019-03-06

  This one off movie tried to hard to be many things but instead ended up as a slow moving jumble of events. Poor editing and a poor script did not help either. It could have been so much better if the flashback scenes were not so overdone. The script is too superficial to really tell the story here.