Axone (Akhuni; a Naga dish with a pungent smell) snuck up on me, giving me weird feelings and a lot to think about. It's a simple story of a group of friends from Nagaland and other parts of Northeast India living as paying guests in Delhi. They are trying to prepare the dish for their friend on her special occasion, which is hindered by a variety of issues, ranging from catcalling to discrimination. It does get uncomfortable at times and that is the essence of watching Axone; it hits you because what it shows you is true. Delightful performances (and a bubbly Sayani Gupta in perhaps her best role so far), excellent background music with a tinge of NE cultural music, and a linear screenplay makes it a very good watch. I highly recommend it. (Grade B). TN.

A bit raw and amateurish but full of heart. Axone is a topsy-turvy tale of how a group of northeast Indians try to arrange a small-scale wedding for one of their friends.

They are making the eponymous dish, Axone or the Akhuni Pork. This does not have a pleasing smell while it cooks and that means there is hardly any place to cook it in the small quarters of a house they call home. They are not allowed to cook at their rented-out place in Delhi as part of their residential contract, but today is special. They are making this as a surprise wedding gift for someone who has to be away from her family on the day of her own wedding.

When I first heard the line 'Apne hi desh mein mehmaan bankar koi khush kaise ho sakta hai' in Chak De India, it was 2007; it hit hard. 12 years after, In 2019, the depiction in axone isn't much different. Using the axone dish the movie makes a commentary about how the northeast Indians are still treated differently.

There is a scene when the entire group is searching for a place where they can cook. Everyone from the group makes phone calls to find suitable places. All languages are different, and intonations varied. It is just about now that entire India started acknowledging the differences between Tamil and Telugu and other languages from the southern states. For a country taking pride in its diversity, I think it still needs time and earnest efforts to acknowledge the variations of all cultures truly.

The filmmaking, as well as the acting performances, are natural and heartfelt. They don't rank among the finest, but good enough to put the point across, and to make you think. The movie makes passing judgements from the perspective of an average mainland Indian, but it is not heavy-handed in its scorn. The characters like Shiv keep the dialogue open and outlook positive.

Movies like Axone are needed. They tell us that fascinating stories are everywhere and in very interesting contexts, we just have to experiment a bit with our tastes.