Originally posted by: insideroutsider
Completely agree with Vidya's performance. She was the life of the film. I do think when you're doing a film on a living person who we don't know much, you have to perform in a way that you completely pull in the audience and she did exactly that. She completely brought in the spirit of Shakuntala Devi to the film. Like someone earlier said, not even one of her maths shows looked the same. She ensured it was different not just for us but also for the audience in the film as that's how the real Shakuntala Devi was. Adding a touch of humour to every single maths performance of hers so that Maths no longer looked a serious subject.
But my favorite bits in the film are in the silences, when Shakuntala tries to convince herself that what she is doing is good for her daughter but keeps seeing her daughter asking for her dad. How everytime the smile fades from her face when Anu ends up getting excited at the mention of 'baba'. And then chirpy Shakuntala suddenly falls silent in that chat show when she realizes they are going to ask her maths question as she was ageing and had already given up her maths shows and her memory was fading. And finally that breakdown after smelling her Amma's saree. So so beautifully done in the film by Vidya and the director. And also that scene where they showed that she probably used her ex husband as a publicity gimmick to sell her book on homosexuality.
This is what I look forward to the most in Hindi biopics- show all sides of the protagonist and stop whitewashing them. Just like how Shakuntala was portrayed in this film. She made mistakes but never did they justify that they were made because of someone else. They were all her decisions- good or bad and she herself faced the repurcussions of the same. And for once I was relieved that Bollywood was not telling the story of a gunda mawali don but an actual pride of the country who is still not known to so many of our current generation. I hope Bollywood keeps making films on such hidden gems. We need more stories to feel inspired than whitewash biopics like Sanju.
A grade acting by Vidya and all the age progressions done so well. I personally love the maths show she does right after having the baby and how she goes ' Shall we see if this new mother's brain is working or not'. Like Justin Rao mentioned in his tweet The Marvelous Ms Balan. ⨠Such a delight on screen and so ably supported by Sanya Malhotra. She was the ying to Shakuntala's yang- very understated but held her ground firmly in front of Vidya. Also very refreshing to see a mother daughter story in Hindi cinema. I really don't remember the last mother story I saw in Bollywood. And also heard in one of Vidya's interviews that majority of the team behind this film were women. So kudos to that.
And lastly, once the film ended I realized how amazing would the real Shakuntala be. That too in the 50's and 60's. Globe trotting, confidently walking in huge halls and performing Maths shows in sarees, getting into politics, doing astrology, writing books on maths for kids and adults, writing crime thrillers and books on homosexuality, I also read she wrote books on cooking for men. And all of this along with being a mother and having internal conflicts with her own family. A legend in true sense. Seriously HOW DO YOU DO IT MISS DEVI? đ
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