Making of a Queen

Tables can turn. And they have in the case of Queen, which had a slower-than-a-snail start at the ticket windows, but is now being rated a winner both by the mandarins and the masses. A positive word-of-mouth buzz has ensured that the chuckle-fest is a winner, in the process once again raising the debate that a woman-centric film need not be box-office poison.

Admittedly, going by the initial public response, I had grouped Queen among the three debacles premiered on March 7. The other two Gulaab Gang and Total Siyaapa, are by now dead and buried by the tradewallas. But Vikas Bahl’s
Queen, spotlighting Kangana Ranaut (she even shares credit for dialogue writing), has witnessed one of those rare reversals of fortunes. The classic cases in this downers-turned-mega-uppers scenario are, of course, Pakeezah, Sholay, the Aamir Khan-Madhuri Dixit romance Dil, and Jodhaa Akbar, which, believe it or not, had started lamely only to sprint towards overwhelming success.

In fact, the curious case of Queen establishes the 27-year-old Kangana Ranaut (earlier associated with psychologically disturbed roles) as an actress who can command the audience’s interest for the length of nearly two-and-a-half hours. For once, the ‘hero’ or the ‘male interest’ portrayed by the able actor Rajkummar Rao, was reduced to a decorative object. Unexpectedly too, the portrayal of the eponymous Rani excited the peerless actress Shabana Azmi to tweet fulsome praise for the actress. “You won’t be able to take your eyes off Kangana,” Azmi raved. To be sure, the performance is more than likely to feature in the Best Actress Award nominations, if not bag the award itself, during the awards season early next year.

The story-screenplay of Queen is riddled with flaws though. For instance, the segment in which the heroine shares an Amsterdam hotel room with three males is hardly plausible. Ditto her relentless naiveté in reacting to liberal European ‘culture’. On the upside, count the character’s combative spirit like Rani’s fight with a thief in a back alley of Paris, the vignettes showing her throwing moral caution to the wind and the ability to make a life-altering decision at the end.

Alas, a thoroughly feisty performance by the popular model Lisa Haydon, as a woman who knows the ways of the world and how to deal with them, has been undervalued. Be that as it may, the positive response to Queen does portend more films focusing on women, rather than muscle-packed heroes.

The absolutely embarrassing Rajjo, which also featured Kangana Ranaut in the title role, has now been deleted from the memory files. And the producers of Revolver Rani, featuring the actress as a gun-toting politician, are over the moon with the success of Queen. Promotional trailers, accentuating the actress as a fierce political leader with stand-up comedian Vir Das as her love interest, are bombarding TV and social networking sites. The lady’s going places.

Indeed, every Bollywood heroine, on establishing her star value, seems to strategise her career towards films that give her an opportunity to break out of the passive mould — like Priyanka Chopra did with Fashion and Saat Khoon Maaf, Kareena Kapoor with Chameli and Heroine, Parineeti Chopra with Hasee Toh Phasee and Deepika Padukone, who has been pencilled in for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani and enacts the eponymous role in Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny Fernandes. Meanwhile, Katrina Kaif may produce and cast herself in an attention-grabbing role by adapting a French film, for which she has secured the remaking rights.

Unwittingly perhaps, the A-list heroines become pickier and crave more substance in terms of footage and histrionics, leaving the floor open for the newbies to step into the purely glamorous parts. Currently, Jacqueline Fernandes and Sonakshi Sinha are the most wanted arm candies. Sonakshi did make an impact with Lootera, eclipsing Ranveer Singh, but by and large, seems to be comfortable in the sing-and-dance zone.

It’s quite a dicey business, this. When female stars aspire to go beyond the same-‘ol, they end up belting out their career-best performances. After that, nothing seems to match up. Indeed, Vidya Balan who gave Bollywood’s women-focused cinema a good name with Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica, The Dirty Picture and Kahaani, hasn’t lived up to the standards she has created for herself. Both Ghanchakkar and Shaadi ke Side Effects were wrong choices, leading to a sabbatical — short-lived, hopefully — from the studios.

At the moment, Kangana Ranaut is rocking. Her market equity is zooming. But it is a difficult status to sustain. Queens are endemically dethroned in show business, unless they keep re-asserting that they are as powerful as the heroes in chronically male-dominated Bollywood. And why not? Nothing is impossible in the dream factory.