Mogul Mowgli
**Seen at the 2021 Atlanta Film Festival.
Riz Ahmed has a gift for playing moments of devastating emotion with subtle pain. Similarly, moments of emotional certainty are now shouted from the mountain tops, but rather, achieved through quiet realization that just hits us just right. For the second film in a row, these traits are on display from Ahmed in a film that captures transformative pain and uncertainty. Are he and his co-writer, Bassam Tariq (who directs the film), simply mining the same material as Darius Marder’s “Sound of Metal,” which netted Ahmed an Oscar nomination? Yes and no; that are definitely similarities, but “Mogul Mowgli” goes off in a different direction; it still comes down to Ahmed’s performance, though, and he has a terrific one here.
When we first meet Zed, Ahmed’s character, he is on stage in the last part of his concerts. He is a rapper, and he is just about to hit the big time- his manager (Anjana Vasan) has lined him up a significant tour as an opening act. He’s having personal issues, however, first with his girlfriend (Aiysha Hart), who goads him into going to see his parents for the first time in a couple of years; they are in London, but he doesn’t visit them often. When he gets home, his excitement for the tour is muted by his constant arguments with his father (Alyy Khan), as well as discomfort he begins to feel in his legs. When he gets into a fight behind a temple where his family is praying one night, a trip to the hospital reveals something else- it turns out, he has a degenerative autoimmune disorder where his white blood cells are attacking his muscles, and he is getting weaker and weaker. On top of potentially transforming his life physically, he also might lose out on the tour to a rapper who represents everything he hates.
There are moments in the film that hint at the political unrest between Pakistanis and Indians and the way that tension plays into the lives of the characters, but it doesn’t really feel fleshed out; maybe that’s because I don’t have the background of these characters or culture, but even if I did, that’s ultimately secondary to Zed’s personal struggles. The arc Zed goes on here is very similar to Ruben’s in “Sound of Metal,” but it’s ultimately more rooted in his reconnecting with his family more than it is just one woman, although his ex-girlfriend does come back into play in a key scene later, when it Zed is about to go through experimental treatment for his disease. Ahmed and Khan have fantastic tension between them as a father and son who ultimately share a common love, but from different perspectives. That’s what makes the final scene in the movie so powerful- after the journey they go on together, their ability to connect is emotional, and feels like a defining moment going forward, and much like Ruben’s moment of truth at the end of “Sound of Metal,” it begins with quiet reflection.
