''City of Joy'' is a 1992
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
Roland Joffé
Roland Joffé (born 17 November 1945) is a British director and producer of film and television, known for the Academy Award-winning films ''The Killing Fields'' and '' The Mission''. He began his career in television, his early credits includ ...
, with a screenplay by
Mark Medoff
Mark Medoff (March 18, 1940 – April 23, 2019) was an American playwright, screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor. His play '' Children of a Lesser God'' received both the Tony Award and the Olivier Award. He was nominat ...
. It is based upon the
novel of the same name by
Dominique Lapierre
Dominique Lapierre (30 July 1931 – 2 December 2022) was a French author.
Life
Dominique Lapierre was born in Châtelaillon-Plage, Charente-Maritime, France. At the age of thirteen, he travelled to the U.S. with his father who was a diplomat ...
, which looks at poverty in then-modern India, specifically life in the
slums
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
. The film stars
Patrick Swayze
Patrick Wayne Swayze (; August 18, 1952 – September 14, 2009) was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for playing distinctive lead roles, particularly romantic, tough, and comedic characters. He was also known for his media image and ...
,
Pauline Collins
Pauline Collins (born 3 September 1940) is a British actress who first came to prominence portraying Sarah Moffat in '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' (1971–1973) and its spin-off, ''Thomas & Sarah'' (1979). In 1992, she published her autobiography, ...
,
Om Puri
Om Prakash Puri (18 October 1950 – 6 January 2017) was an Indian actor who appeared in mainstream commercial Hindi films as well as Bengali, Kannada,English, Punjabi and one Telugu film, as well as independent and art films and also starred ...
and
Shabana Azmi
Shabana Azmi (born 18 September 1950) is an Indian actress of Hindi film, television and theatre. One of India's most acclaimed actresses, Azmi is known for her portrayals of distinctive, often unconventional female characters across several ge ...
.
Plot
Hazari Pal is a rural farmer who moves to
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
with his wife Kamla and three children in search of a better life. The Pals do not get off to a good start: they are cheated out of their rent money and thrown out on the streets, and it's difficult for Hazari to find a job to support them. But the determined family refuses to give up and eventually finds its place in the poverty-stricken city.
Meanwhile, on the other end of Calcutta, Max Lowe, a Houston surgeon distraught after the loss of a young patient, has arrived in search of spiritual enlightenment. However, he encounters misfortune as soon as he arrives. After being tricked by a young prostitute, he is roughed up by thugs and left bleeding in the street without his documents and valuable possessions.
Hazari comes to Max's aid and takes the injured doctor to the "City of Joy," a slum area populated with lepers and poor people which becomes the Pals' new home and the American's home-away-from-home. Max spends a lot of time in the neighborhood, but he does not want to become too involved with the residents because he is afraid of becoming emotionally attached to them. He soon, however, is coaxed into helping his new-found friends by a strong-willed Irish woman, who runs the local clinic.
Eventually, Max begins to fit in with his fellow slum-dwellers and become more optimistic. There are many around him whose lives are much worse, but they look on each day with a hope that gives new strength to the depressed doctor.
Cast
Reception
Box office
In contrast to some of Joffe's previous successes (''
The Killing Fields
A killing field is a concept in military science.
Killing field may also refer to:
* Killing Fields, a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than a million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of ...
''), the film was not a box office success, even on its modest budget; According to
the Internet Movie Database
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, p ...
and
Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon.
History
Brandon Gray began ...
, the film grossed $14.7 million in the United States.
Critical response
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
the film has an approval rating of 53% based on reviews from 17 critics.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' gave it 3 out of 4 and wrote: "''City of Joy'' seems a little too "written," too conformed to the rituals of Hollywood screenplays. There's so much interesting stuff in the movie we are prepared to forgive that."
[ ]
See also
*
1992 in film
The year 1992 in film involved many significant film releases.
Highest-grossing films
The top 10 films released in 1992 by worldwide gross are as follows:
Events
* August 24 – Production begins on '' Jurassic Park''.
Awards
1992 wide-rel ...
*
List of drama films
List of drama films is a chronological listing of films in the drama genre.
*List of drama films of the 1900s
*List of drama films of the 1910s
*List of drama films of the 1920s
*List of drama films of the 1930s
*List of drama films of the 1940s
...
References
External links
*
''City of Joy''at
Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon.
History
Brandon Gray began ...
{{Roland Joffé
1992 films
1992 drama films
British drama films
English-language French films
Films directed by Roland Joffé
TriStar Pictures films
Warner Bros. films
Films set in India
Films set in Kolkata
Films shot at Pinewood Studios
Films scored by Ennio Morricone
Films based on French novels
Films shot in India
French drama films
1990s English-language films
1990s British films
1990s French films