Int’l Critics Line: Alia Bhatt In ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’
17.03.2022 - 18:39
/ deadline.com
“Save your over-acting for the movies,” Ganga’s boyfriend Ramnik (Varun Kapoor) advises her, as she gasps with exaggerated joy at the train ticket to Mumbai — home of Bollywood, the world’s biggest film industry — he holds up to her in Gangubai Kathiawadi. It’s a knowingly self-aware joke. Popular as they are, Bollywood films are often lampooned for their frequently coarse acting, along with their melodramatic subjects, corny romance, absurd pantomime villains and the fact that even the most tragic scene may turn on a dime into a massive dance number. Unless you grew up with them, the Bollywood approach to giving bang for every buck can be hard to swallow.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s epic tale of Gangubai, the true story of a girl from an affluent family sold into prostitution who became a so-called “mafia queen” of Mumbai, ticks all those boxes. The brothel madams are maniacally evil, beating their girls and punishing rebels by abandoning them to the most sadistic clients. Their street of shame is so obviously a studio set that its artificiality seems to be a selling point. The local crime boss Karim Lala (Ajay Devgn) is ruthless but — surprise! — turns out to have a heart of gold when it comes to fallen women. And of course, in the midst of her fight for these women’s rights, Gangu finds but must be denied true love: the rules of melodrama dictate that she may never know ordinary happiness. To top it off, the whole shebang goes on for two and a half hours. That’s Bollywood for you.
But here’s the thing: every minute of those two and a half hours is ravishingly entertaining. The songs, written by the director, bounce along energetically; the camera does much the same thing, zooming and zig-zagging in a powerhouse effort to
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