Saturday, March 8, 2014

Queen


Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao, Lisa Haydon, Vinay Singh, Bokyo Mish, Jeffrey Ho, Joseph Guitobh, Canadea Lopez Marco
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Direction: Vikas Bahl
Production: Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane
Story: Vikas Bahl
Screenplay : Parveez Shaikh, Chaitally Parmar, Vikas Bahl
Cinematographer: Siddharth Diwan, Bobby Singh
Music: Amit Trivedi
Lyricist: Anvita Dutt Guptan
Editing : Abhijit Kokate, Anurag Kashyap
Studio : Phantom Films
Distribution: Viacom 18 Motion Pictures
Release Date: 7th March, 2014
Language: Hindi
Duration: 2 hours 26 minutes
Rating: 4 /5 (Very Good)
Queen showcases Kangana Ranaut’s spectacular and terrific performance. A movie with less words, and zero melodrama. The movie begins with the loud Punjabi Wedding - mehandi, sangeet celebrations of Rani aka Queen (played by Kangana Ranaut). It is great to see Rani’s self-talk as a bride-in-making about lot many things viz. her friend ought to be dancing in her mehandi, young kid brother Chintu ought to be taking photographs of her on her mobile etc. Devastated by the last minute ‘call off’ of the relationship by her fiancée London-returned Vijay Dhingra (Rajkummar Rao), she decides to fly (with her family’ support) for her pre-planned honeymoon all alone to Paris and Amsterdam. Here Rani starts her voyage of self-discovery, a girl from Rajouri Garden of Delhi, over protective daughter of a Mithaiwala (businessman) to a foreign land absolutely on her own. It is really wonderful to see Rani emerge from her turmoil.
Director Vikas Bahl has done a great job by weaving a very ordinary theme into a great story of triumph of an ordinary girl, regaining her self-esteem, and relooking at life from a very different perspective. Vikas is not at all judgmental in projecting the east and west lifestyles.  
Lisa Haydon as Vijayalakshmi (called as Vijay), a Hotel staff in Paris and French-Indian single mom, who turned to be a good friend of Rani has done full justice to her role. Vikas Bahl has thoughtfully crafted two ‘Vijay’ in the movie, one by Rajkummar Rao and another by Lisa Haydon, one responsible for the ‘miseries’ (can we say so…?) in Rani’s life, and another showing her a different path to her independent and self-worthy life.
From Paris, Rani goes to Amsterdam where she gets the company of multi-cultural trio: White, Black and Asian. Certain scenes are just hilarious. Rani is absolutely shown on her way to learn freedom, friendship, togetherness, yet skyping with her family in India ten times a day.  
The cast of Rani’s family- her parents, dadi and brother are all very good. Rajkummar Rao as Vijay has given a great performance as a regular obnoxious boy who wants a girl (who should not be working, yet modern in looks) within his framework. He excels in almost all the frames: in his efforts to persuade Rani for his love, then rejecting her, and also as the one who wants to win back the girl and her love when he finds that she has started fitting into his so-called ‘parameters’. 
The beauty of the film is all about the gradual unexaggerated transformation of Rani along with the fading of Mehandi on her hands into a confident self-assured girl. Rani tells us that is it necessary to be victim to someone else’s deeds, someone else’s rejection ? There is a beautiful scene in the movie that soon after cancellation of the marriage and crying for almost the whole night, she gets up and eats the same Shaadi ke Laddu which was kept in her room.
Yes, the Queen completely belongs to Kangana, her silent, yet great facial expressions, her innocence, her carrying off kurtis to beautiful stylish costumes. Absolutely natural look is given to her. 
Music by Amit Trivedi is doing good in chartbusters. Paris and Amsterdam have been captured nicely by the cinematographer.

Watch Queen, she is going to be the queen of your heart.

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