Review : Vikas Bahl's "Queen" is impressively aberrant.

One of the pitfalls of being in the birth country of the Hindi film industry is that we are often fed a sturdy diet of satires pretending to be socially relevant films. That's the case with Gulaab Gang, a film which I gleefully put into my collection called Too Bad, Didn't Whistle! without even watching it. The collection consists of films in which the director had given the audience plenty of time to whistle and cheer, but the only sound that emanated from the theatre came from about a hundred people sticking out their tongues and blowing. 

But I'm not here to talk about Gulaab Gang. What, you think I'd go for a movie in which women beat wussies from Wasseypur black, blue and pink with sticks, nutsos? Oh, groan. 

No, instead, I'm here to talk about this little gem I witnessed today. In a clutter of Hindi films that tackle self-discovery as their primary subject, this one took the genre and put it up there, right where English Vinglish is. And believe me, this genre is abused flagrantly way too often, because the general idea of self-discovery in the Hindi film industry is finding out that you can become a fashion model after all. This niggling norm was smashed to pieces by Gauri Shinde's English Vinglish, a funny, moving story about a mother trying to learn English to impress her family. It's a film that left me grinning stupidly from ear to ear, and that's the only time I like to look stupid. And a film which brings out that in me is something special.

Queen, thankfully, chugs down that unfamiliar path. I took a ginormous swig of the soda next to me in relief when I learned that. Such promise in the first ten minutes is rare for a Hindi film. 

You know, I'll tell you something straight up. I was never a fan of Kangana Ranaut, never. I never watched a lot of her films, barring a few odd comme ci comme ca whits of her filmography. And I used to deplore her choices of films. Really, what choices can you expect from a woman whose ex-boyfriends' list reads Adhyayan Suman and Aditya Pancholi? But she was always a fine actress, you know. I won't dispute that.

Queen is Ranaut at her assiduous, charming, peppy best. Right from the opening sequence in which she curiously gazes at her aunts practicing dance steps to the final buoyant walk back home, her Rani doesn't miss a beat. It's a flawless performance which lights up the screen, scrupulously detailed and earnestly acted out. Now, that's called self-discovery, chums. Like the character, Ranaut may have just discovered her actor self. Whoo!

Interestingly enough, the facade here is that some truly comical moments conceal a revenge drama that Queen was rearing to become. A moralistic Delhi girl is dumped a day before her wedding by her flinty fiance, an anglophile who wears sunglasses in a coffee shop. Yeah, that bastardly. The agony the poor lassie feels knows no bounds. She starves herself while being locked up in a room, cries her eyes out and desperately searches for her phone whenever it makes some sound. And in that wretched state, she wants to scoot off to see Paris and Amsterdam. We do too. Gobsmacking!

The story here is spunkily minimalist, as is its treatment. But in the bare story, we find those tiny moments to revel in. Bahl's attention to detail is astonishing, as he carefully daubs the minutest of nuances to his story. Like the dumping sequence after which the finace dusts the henna bits off the table. Or the sequence in which our lady talks about her honeymoon plans in a worried whisper, or risk her elders to get the wind of them. The touches are snazzy if not crucial, and somewhere, I presume, Dibakar Banerjee, the detail maven of a lackadaisical industry, is feeling unusually antsy.

But, you know, it's a kick to learn that the script wasn't written by a travel agency eager to dip their hands into a tourist film. We don't get to see great visuals of the city as Bahl makes it about his protagonist, not about her travels. And about the mad clan she meets. Oho! The Lord Divine is good to us sometimes.

One of the film's most endearing scenes is Rani dancing to a Hindi song in a drunken stupor in a Paris nightclub. After getting an earful from her boyfriend for dancing at her nuptials, it's oddly hilarious and moving to watch her giving the Parisians a quick lesson in dancing the Indian way; lend your feet to the beats. Somewhere, it's a quiet celebration of a free spirit. Wasn't that what Bahl wanted to achieve? Well, he sure did. Only this is one of the film's minor achievements. Oh, la la!

So, you might be thinking how perfect I'm making the film sound. Well, it was, till the second half kicked in. Oh, no! Yes, yes, the curse of the second half has befallen many a film, buds. Not that the film has any galling melodrama to sew its weak pieces together, but what irked me was how it often sloppily resorted to the stereotypes in the post-interval span. So, you have the protagonist feeding golgappas to hungry people in Amsterdam, and they scarf it up so much that the other stall owners lose their thriving patrons. And what may have caused our nun to take such a drastic step, you may ask? Well, it's some sort of cooking competition she participates in there. Oho, mistakes happen. Tsk, golgappas of all dishes. And in all this, Bahl still finds time to show us her first kiss. Bejesus!

But the mishits are quick and relatively painless here. Phew!

I haven't seen Aisha, so I have no clue how Lisa Haydon fared in her nettlesome debut. But in a film of revelations, she is one of the major ones. Her performance is no match for Ranaut's, and yet she's fantastic. And gorgeous. Sigh.

I find it hard to digest the fact that Bahl, the crackerjack Bahl, was half the brains behind a film called Chillar Party. I haven't seen it, most probably because the name didn't sound even remotely appealing to me, but this is a strong second feature, cineastes. Though not consistently impressive, Queen is feisty, like its enchanting protagonist, and dawdles long enough to make a strong impression.

Here's a high-five. Now for those golgappas.