Review: Shakuntala Devi: add up to one watch in one go...the sexiest feminist and the mom..

                 Shakuntala Devi

Swedish author Ingmar Bergman in his 1978 classic Autumn Sonata created a charming conflict of emotions between a renowned classical pianist and her fairly average daughter, who drowns under the fame of her illustrious mother.

Many prolific filmmakers around the world have used Bergman's film as a textbook to explore relationship-related themes that a famous mother can share with a daughter who longs for a normal life. In India, random memory would bring back the brilliant 1994 drama by Bengali esthete Rituparno Ghosh, "Unishe April" (April 19).

In "Shakuntala Devi", director Anu Menon uses a similar tactic while dissecting his theme, in much more current language. Shakuntala Devi was a phenomenon. She was also a mother and a wife. Menon takes an interesting approach to analyze how the phenomenon was born at the expense of the mother and the wife.

The idea becomes a reality through a narrative that unfolds widely through the eyes of Shakuntala's daughter, Anupama Banerjee, making "Shakuntala Devi" both a biographical film and a drama about a mother-daughter relationship.

The approach prevents "Shakuntala Devi" from becoming hagiography. The filmmaker scores with discreet confidence while balancing the human and human computers.

But Menon's ambition evidently extends beyond portraying Shakuntala Devi as an impeccable genius and a flawed person, and that's where the film goes wrong. As the story of life unfolds, a variety of messages that this film wants to convey make a straight line to be properly addressed: on the importance of empowering women, on the disturbing side of success, and on the need to understand human relationships above all, just to name a few. To his credit, Menon and his co-writer Nayanika Mahtani have served up all the comments without being too loud about it, though the execution can't escape a Bollywood twist.

The beginning of the film itself occurs on a dramatic note, defining Vidya Balan's Shakuntala Devi as an antithesis of everything an ideal mother should be. Her daughter Anupama Banerjee (Sanya Malhotra) is a young businesswoman on her way to present a criminal case against the famous mother.

Before explaining to us what the exact point of conflict between mother and daughter is, the story rewinds back to Shakuntala's childhood. In retrospect, we see Shakuntala as a girl who can solve complex equations in no time. Her rapacious father (Prakash Belawadi) sees a boy making money machine. Forget about school, she says, and come up with plans to use your skills to organize shows and get rich.

The first half of the film is primarily about capturing the young Shakuntala's rise to fame in India and, after a fateful turn of events, in the UK, and has a cheery tone. She is a woman who is learning to live alone and on her own terms in a world and in an era in which men struggle to understand her.

The drama was obviously to start with Shakuntala marrying IAS officer Paritosh Banerjee (Jisshu Sengupta). After a time of happy marriage happiness, during which Anupama is born, Paritosh's quiet life begins to hurt Shakuntala. She longs to return to the tour, on stage, and become the magician of numbers.

When Paritosh is happy to see her go on tour, Shakuntala has a new problem. She is too possessive with Anupama and wants the girl to travel with her on her endless tours. Paritosh insists that her daughter must stay in India and have a proper education. Cracks appear in the relationship.

The second half is where motherhood, math, and marriage are configured as the three distinct emotions that govern Shakuntala's mind in that order. This is where the drama really needed to sizzle, in order for the movie to come to life. This is also where the narrative is disappointed by the writing.

Anu Menon and his creative team somehow fail to capture the complex conflicts that seem to define Shakuntala Devi's mind, beneath the exterior of supreme confidence and success. She would not settle for being normal when she can always be amazing, Shakuntala replies when Anupama asks why she cannot be like other "normal" mothers. Ironically, though, in the end, the story shows how being Anupama's mother meant everything to Shakuntala, even beyond her mathematics. The script somehow doesn't bring up that paradox. The result is that the movie begins to look like a regular mother-daughter melodrama after a point.

What could have been a great movie ends up being a fee that can be seen.

The film draws much of its observational ability from its cast. Vidya Balan admirably balances Shakuntala's transformation as the protagonist ages. She is a fighter but vulnerable as a young woman, fresh from the ship in London, who can continue unapologetically conversing with the "goras" despite her broken English. She is the living star of the party who sweeps the gentleman Paritosh with a love note on paper. She is the celebrity who can confidently declare that her husband is gay because she needs to be the center of attention to sell a book she has written about homosexuality. She is the mother who can lead her daughter to hardship, force her to live with her even after marriage. It takes an actor of Vidya Balan's caliber to transform from one Shakuntala Devi avatar to another.

Manufacturers have also rated great backup equipment. The script finds perfect support in Sanya Malhotra, Jisshu Sengupta, and Amit Sadh (as Anupama's husband, Ajay). This is not a movie with too many characters, so these actors, along with Vidya, had to be consistently good at every scene to support the narrative. In that sense, the cast lives up to its turnover.