Episode 21: Gandhi, the Biopic that Won Best Picture Instead of E.T.

2024-09-17

Remember that time we pretended that Blade Runner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The King of Comedy, ET, and Rocky III were inferior to the movie Gandhi? The 1980s were fun. Rena and Sara take a journey back to their teen years to re-watch this beloved teaching aid for high school history instructors and it was … not fun. Gandhi remains a bloodless but well-executed hagiography that also happens to be beautifully shot and eighty-nine hours long. So many train rides and speeches and marches and b...

Remember that time we pretended that Blade Runner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The King of Comedy, ET, and Rocky III were inferior to the movie Gandhi? The 1980s were fun.

Rena and Sara take a journey back to their teen years to re-watch this beloved teaching aid for high school history instructors and it was … not fun. Gandhi remains a bloodless but well-executed hagiography that also happens to be beautifully shot and eighty-nine hours long. So many train rides and speeches and marches and beatific jailings, so much clothing-weaving and platitude sharing. Oh, and dust. Plentiful dust.

Between analyzing whether this movie is rightfully putting on airs, Rena and Sara also take pity on Gandhi’s wife—who definitely didn’t sign up for this, discuss the issues that come up when one speed-walks in a diaper and sandals, and speculate on the wild array of white actors who were ALMOST cast as Gandhi.

Gandhi stars Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, Rohini Hattangadi as Kasturba Gandhi, Rosha Seth as Nehru, Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Fox as Reginald Dyer, Biopic threepete-r John Gielgud, and Martin Sheen as Vince Walker.

Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.

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