'Queen' Kangna Shines in a Near Flawless Inspirational Tale


BANGALORE: There are some films that you simply don't want to end. And when they do, you want to spring out of your seat and give the darned thing a standing ovation. "Queen", directed by Vikas Bahl is that rarity. Its thematic elegance and narrative wisdom surpasses anything that you might have come to expect from the frothy ebullient trailers. Frothy and ebullient, "Queen" certainly is. But it's a lot more. At the end you are left so close to the characters and their life-defining milieu that the late Bobby Singh's camera lenses dissolve and merge into the very fabric of the narrative. And to think that the film begins with another big fat Punjabi wedding! Before we know it, the narrative takes wings, much like its protagonist Rani played by Kangna Ranaut. In 'Queen", Kangna is so in-sync with her character that you wonder if the story was written according to the emotions that the actress had stored away in her heart. There is stark honesty about Kangna's portrayal of the Delhi girl who is deserted by her husband-to-be days before the wedding. Familiar, no?

Bahl turns the oft-repeated tale of betrayal and self-realization into an ode to womanhood. The naked yearning in Rani's eyes when she pleads with the selfish idiot not to destroy her life is so real it leaves you shaken. You know immediately that this girl means business. And so, let me tell you, does the director. Bahl possesses a keen eye for physical and emotional detail. He makes astounding use of a wide spectrum of topography from Delhi to Paris to Amsterdam to give specificity to the protagonist's obvious weaknesses and inner strengths. Here is that rare director who knows how to articulate his characters' feelings through the spaces that they occupy. Kangna's face and body-language do the rest. There is something magical about the way Bahl uses Kangna's artless vulnerability to express the character's hurt and desire, sometimes both in the same breath. At the end we're left with a female character who is naive and yet worldly-wise, who thinks sex happens only after marriage and yet kisses an aggressive Italian stranger just because she finds him as hot as Salman Khan.

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Source: IANS