Is Balan BaIlIng?

The formerly bankable star has been putting up sub-standard shows of late - a far cry from the power-packed performances she was known to deliver, up until a few years ago

I'm worried about Vidya Balan. A super-sensitive actress, who invests considerable research and even ensures she gets her diction dead right for any role she essays, is sliding downhill.
Case in point: Hamari Adhuri Kahani. I had avoided this melodrama about a dysfunctional marriage and a romantic liaison, following disparaging reviews as well as its poor performance at the ticket counters. However, when its DVD released recently, I was tempted. Vidya Balan couldn't be bad. she's incapable of a lousy performance - or so I thought.
Watching the awfully regressive Hamari Adhuri Kahani, directed by the usually gifted Mohit Suri (take Ek Villain and Aashiqui 2, for example), it was embarrassing to endure the actress's sub-standard performance in what could be described as the worst film of the year, so far - and that's putting it politely.
Whether she struggles to pull a trolley bag through a Dubai desertscape en route to the airport (why couldn't the sufficiently well-heeled lady hire a taxi instead of taking off on a painful hike?), goes gaga over a hotelier with a kinky penchant for flower arrangements, or returns home to find an agitated husband with a bramble bushy beard, Vidya Balan was thoroughly unconvincing and ill-at-ease.

Believed to be ever so picky about the scripts she approves, the actress had obviously made a grave error in accepting the part of a housewife who doesn't know her mind - entirely in contrast to the women of substance she has incarnated ever since she became a household name 10 years ago with her Bollywood debut in Pradeep Sarkar's Parineeta. A star actress had arrived on the scene back then. She could be depended upon to belt out unforgettable performances. Indeed, there was a consistency in her acting calibre, as evidenced in a rapid fire of portrayals from 2009 with Paa, Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica, The Dirty Picture and Kahaani.
Astonished, I believed this was India's answer to Meryl Streep, who can slide in and out of complex roles effortlessly. Today, I would take back my words.
Once a heap of awards and unmitigated praise came her way, thanks particularly to The Dirty Picture and Kahaani, I was sure she would move forward to top these acts. Alas, my favourite actress turned out to be grossly disappointing in the ill-chosen romedies Ghanchakkar and Shaadi ke Side Effects, as well as the addled detective flick Bobby Jasoos. What was she thinking? There was a certain artifice and an attempt to be oh-so-cute in these films which neither entertained nor edified.
Yet I would like to believe that Vidya Balan, at the age of 37, can still ?reboot her career. The snag is that, in interviews, she snaps, "Why should anyone be bothered by my extra weight?" Sorry, but the characters scripted for her frequently require her to look beautiful ("You're so khoobsurat", her screen heroes rave); if not, at least presentable.
In addition, it was cavalier of her to drop out of the planned sequel of Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani, following differences between Ghosh and the producer. After all, the young director had extracted a power-packed performance from her in the taut thriller in 2012. Consequently, a franchise with tremendous potential may have gone kaput altogether.
Meanwhile, Kangana Ranaut has sprinted far ahead of her as an actress who commands a sizeable audience at the multiplexes. Biopics formerly offered to Ms Balan are now being diverted to Ms Ranaut. And it's not as if the former couldn't have done equal justice to a Queen or a Tanu Weds Manu Returns. She appears to have become unapproachable instead, oblivious of the fact that there are younger and infinitely gifted options in B-town's competitive heroine sector.

That Vidya Balan has been married to film corporate honcho Siddharth Roy Kapur for three years now hasn't diminished her market equity at all. Rather, her myopic career strategy and tetchy interviews in the media point towards an actress who has lost her compass at the movie crossroads.
At this juncture, she has only one film on her plate, Sunny Deol's Ghayal 2, in which she presumably steps into the shoes of the now-retired Meenakshi Seshadri. Plus, there's some buzz that she will enact the part of Charlie Chaplin (whoa!) under the direction of R Sharath, a project that has made news but hasn't taken off yet.
Vidya Balan as Charlie Chaplin? Ouch, that sounds gimmicky to me - a gambit that may entice odious comparisons to the immortal legend. Sincerely, I do hope that the once-peerless actress straightens up her act - and fast. I would still walk miles to watch a Vidya Balan movie, but not ?if she's struggling with a trolley in a desert.