Kangana Ranaut, the protagonist of this movie grabbed my attention with an interview for a television channel sometime back. That was the most candid interview I've seen in recent times by a Bollywood diva and that too a fairly successful one. During the course of her interview, she was devoid of starry airs and also did not try to rub her industry rivals on the wrong side. She came across as a matured and sophisticated human being with a touch of class and kept her her cool throughout the interview even while confronting some of the most uncomfortable questions! Also I've seen her dynamics unleashed in the movie ‘Fashion’ where she essayed the much acclaimed supporting role of a pompous ramp walk model that earned her the coveted national award for the best supporting actress. ‘Queen’ too has garnered a lot of critical acclaim and was classified largely as a ‘breed apart’ from the run-of-the-mill Bollywood ‘adult babysitters’ that have their own bitter battle to breach the ‘100 crore’ mark in the first few days or weeks and that lured me to watch this movie (of course with the aid of English subtitles).
Queen is the story of a small town conservative girl, Rani (Kangana Ranaut) who gets betrayed by her fiance on the eve of her marriage. With her dreams shattered, she sets to go on a honeymoon to her dream destination, Paris and Amsterdam, all by herself. With an excessive emotional baggage, she learns to accept life as it is and even achieves her self-realization through beautiful vignette like experiences.
I also realized that this movie shared a lot of parallels with ‘English Vinglish’ that released almost a year back. Apart from both being a female centric theme, the very core of that of a conservative female opening up to let radical thoughts percolate in and take charge was a common structure on which an engaging screenplay was spun.
Vikas Bahl, the director of Queen has not only planted the very thought that the institution of marriage which is riddled with taboos in the Indian context is more to do with how one perceives it, but also has tried to suggest a solution to counteract it’s misgivings which augered well with the narrative, giving a befitting reply to the betrayer who called off the marriage at the last minute. The character sketch of Kangana was well etched and it was performed without a blemish by the ace actress. Subtle nuances of the character like a closed body language, a childish ‘small-town’ attitude, her innocence, the helpless manner in which she pleads to her fiance when he decides to call off the wedding at the last minute, her coming to terms with the reality by befriending the same - every detail seems to have been thoroughly worked out on and off screen.
The characters that were cast, be it the selfish fiance (Rajkumar), the concerned parents of Rani, a typical Punjabi would be mother-in-law, the trio of foreign roommates and the slutty waitress (Lisa Hayden) at the Paris hotel were wonderful selections that paid off in terms of an engaging screenplay that made sense.
Another big strength was that the movie relied on music only when it was needed in order to convey the emotions which in turn relied on powerful visuals like the scene where Rani tries to duck the vision of the Eiffel Tower as she walks through the gullies of Paris as she considers it as her past that comes to haunt her every time when she gets to see it. Wonderful work by the late cinematographer Bobby Singh.
Queen can be seen for not only its underlying emotional drama, but also for its timely wits that was peppered throughout the narrative - be it Rani’s rant with a drunken stupor or her innocent dialogs with Vijayalakshmi and her roommates or the episode where Rani’s father and younger brother battle themselves to befriend Vijayalakshmi over Skype - the comic timing has worked out leaving us teary eyed (due to laughter) at times.
The director and the protagonist of Queen deserve nothing short of a royal salute for delivering a brilliantly packaged film that not only made sense but left a lasting impression among the audiences.
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