Dilli ki Shaadi, Parisian Streets, and the Patakha Queen!

QUEEN

(2014)

Directed by- Vikas Bahl

Written by- Parveez Shaikh, Chaitally Parmar, Vikas Bahl

*Kangana Ranaut, Lisa Haydon, Rajkumar Rao, Yogendra Tiku, Chinmaya Agrawal

A very well made comedy about a punjabi girl out on a solo honeymoon and her hilarious shenanigans.

Following outrageous praise from everywhere, I finally went for it and was super-glad of my decision.

The opening is just perfect. With the late Bobby Singh's excellent camerawork and Behl's spot-on direction the whole Dilli ka mahol comes stupendously to life. But it is of course Kangana who drives the film forward with her superior turn as the adorable Rani.

The Paris leg too works out just fine with surprisingly decent support coming from Lisa Haydon. 

But it was the Amsterdam track which got bogged down a bit and got all (Hindi) filmy as it progressed. Though I really like Rajkumar Rao, I think his character was just there and could've been played by a wooden plank and didn't actually require a convincing actor like Rao.

With Amit Trivedi's energetic music and Anurag Kashyap's nifty editing, the film is an endearing, highly enjoyable fare which promised greatness with its strong opening but kind of got lost in the throes of a cliched plot and muddled second half.

In fact, it is the mindblowing Kangana who had me gripped throughout. Not the plot, not the locales or situations, but that mumbling, goofy Rajouri ki Punjaban.

There was once a plastic actress who suddenly did a similar bubbly, out of the box role and became my favorite Hindi actress, her character among the most memorable and adorable characters on Indian celluloid till date.

But Kangana's Rani simply knocks Kareena's Geet out of the park.

Though she was always a talented actress I never really imagined this genuineness and authenticity from Kangana, but of course a big chunk of the credit goes to the writing.

Goddamn you, Filmfare, agar is baar Vidya ko diya!

 

Overall, a massively entertaining film which can be easily viewed more than once. Really enjoyed it.

Rating- 3.8/5