Now Premiering - Shakunthala Devi
Shakunthala Devi – The high and lows of the endearing women never stick to you, thanks to the chokingly tight narrative.
This movie has in it the veneer and engulfing quality on par with Mahanati. But, just like most of the sickening Maths problem on paper and Shakunthala Devi, whose, God knows, maybe a superpower ( Vidya Kasam ) of calculative intellect those on paper extreme problems, the transition never understandable. You never know the whats or whys except for the whens (there always are the timeline noticing places and years constantly projected on the screen space).
The narrative is feather-light and tight in proceedings that the latching on of the weighted twists, conversations, calculations ( the real-life ones) just flies away for a small breeze. This mistake is so grave that your distraction never is a last resort. It’s like openly disclaiming to watch a music video without your earphones plugged in!, cause there isn’t going to be an enriching orchestrated detailing in sounds like in Dolby Atmos and you’re susceptible to missing details. The major grrrsssss and dummmssss – the EDMs, are the only thing you’ll hear. And for that, you just need a good speaker.
Don’t get me wrong about the grrrrsss and dummsss references being bad quality or something, it’s just that if you’re preparing the audience to be something and to do something other than grrsss and dummssss, then they deserve the quality of earphones. The case here is preparing but never deserving. The playful trait and easy-going quality can be easily guessed from the pre-release promotions. But the playfulness shouldn’t be so high that scenes with mature and deep insight scope wander away like the dust on your mobile.
The excellent thing to watch is, undoubtedly, Vidya Balan, who doesn’t reprise but relive Shakunthala Devi -The extraordinary, endearing and bold woman. The Indian mathematical genius. A Guinness Record holder. One of the first writers on Homosexuality. Flip the coin, and you see a traumatised child, a heart-broken lost-love teenager, an uncompromising mother and divorcee to the most understandable husband.
The other side is what we never know exactly and biopics intend to cover that with their inherent capability, which mainly rests on the strengths of the actor who’s playing the part. Vidya Balan, most easily, with her provocative tone and free attitude smoothly transitions from young Shakunthala to old. This transition, just like ageing, is never striking out and recognisable. It’s more subtle and nuanced in guise, unlike, the yesteryear biopics, where the youth, the noble middle and the dying old are in high contrast. The credit also goes to the makeup and costume designers.
But this all goes to waste, like finding the derivative of e^x because the movie’s strength in writing the scenes for every one of the other sides of the coin just get rehashed than relived or at least reiterated. After all, the makers thought of giving more weight to the not so weightless cheeky and droll narrative, though they had the groundbreaking weighed aspects in its writing.
Nothing great in paper translates to screen and nothing great on-screen isn’t equally great as that on paper. Except for the commendable performance, which I doubt will not sustain very long in the memory. Watch the movie for fun, even expecting it to be not so calculative.
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