Kangana Ranaut is one of those actors in Bollywood who, despite spending a considerable amount of time in the industry, hasn’t been able to make a mark as a leading lady.
What Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai did for Amisha Patel, Gangster did for Ranaut; they had the potential to be solid launch pads for the respective actors, but weren’t capitalised on.
Patel ended up doing item numbers like Lazy Lamhe, which was in box office flop Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic and Ranaut ended up playing a mutant (‘manwar’) in the much-criticised Krrish 3.
Both ladies don’t have the ideal combination of beauty and skills and only a messiah could save them from being ‘nobodies’ in a competitive environment like Bollywood.
Patel may still be looking to be salvaged as an actor, but Ranaut has been revitalised through Vikas Bahl’s Queen.
A film that has reintroduced her as a leading lady who is a force to be reckoned with, Queen offers Ranaut a character and script that seem to have been tailored in line with her quirky personality. Thus, it is no surprise that the film brings out the best in her.
Queen is the story of Rani, a 24-year-old Punjabi girl whose wedding preparations are in process, and both the groom and her families engage in them excitedly.
She is getting married to an Indian expatriate named Vijay who had proposed to her before he went abroad looking for a job. Now he is well settled and just as their wedding preparations are in the final phase, he calls Rani to a coffee shop, merely a day before the wedding and tells her that the wedding can’t take place.
The news is devastating for Rani’s family, who plead for reconciliation, but to no avail. The distraught Rani locks herself in a room, cries all day long and keeps waiting for a call from Vijay that never comes.
Finally, when she sees the gloomy faces around her, she decides to go alone for her already-planned honeymoon to Europe. That is when the film takes an interesting turn, as a typical Punjabi girl from India tries to make the best of what she gets in Europe, in her traditional kurtis and with her Bhangra moves.
Culture shock and embracing the true Indian identity has been a running theme in Bollywood films made about NRIs (Non-resident Indians) or Indians visiting a foreign land, especially a Western country.
Of course, films like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, which focuses on three adult men on a joy ride, are an exception, but reverting back to one’s routes has been a common theme.
This is where Queen becomes similar to English Vinglish, but since the former is not about a housewife trying to fit in, but a single girl, the comedy of errors becomes naughtier and cruder as the film progresses.
Crude is one word that also describes Ranaut’s personality, and that is why her raw dialogue delivery as well as rough and rudimentary take on matters of grave concern in life seem in place.
It’s quite evident that she is simply being herself in the film and the hilarious situations and spot-on one-liners in the script complement her personality to perfection.
Having said that, the film has a set of clichés, such as the reserved Indian girl surprising everyone with a traditional delicacy; in English Vinglish it was laddus and in Queen, it is gol gappay.
The film offers a few interesting moments that indicate the culture shock that Ranaut encounters, such as her being asked for an ‘Indian’ kiss by an Italian chef.
However, as seen in Queen yet again, Bollywood needs to get over humour related to language barriers. Yes, the inability to communicate is usually the most prominent form of culture shock, but its recurrence in Bollywood films has made humour in films pertaining to experience in an alien land redundant and needless.
All in all, Queen does leave you in stitches, especially when Rani’s three new friends from different nationalities join her, but the extra long duration and clichés work against it. Do not leave the hall till the concluding credits finish because the film-maker has done a gripping gimmick using the Facebook layout to communicate an epilogue to the story.
Verdict: As a whole, Queen is no less than a more aggressive version of English Vinglish with a less appealing and talented leading lady. It has a lot of entertaining moments that keep it alive despite the many clichés.
Rating: 3/5
Published in The Express Tribune, March 27th, 2014.
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