Movie Review: 'Queen' Kangna Shines In A Near-Flawless Inspirational Tale

....Or 'How Rani Gets Her Groove Back'.... 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 that Chillar Party co-director 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 the born-again Kangna Ranaut. Seven years ago she had made her stunning debut in Anurag Basu's Gangster only to serve up a series of disappointing films and performances.
Starring Kangna Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao, Lisa Hayden

Directed by Vikas Bahl

Rating: **** 1/2


In Queen Kangna gets her groove back.And how! 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 . It all comes out now in a portrait that for years would be summoned up as an epitome of on-screen transparency.

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? Director 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.Vikas Bahl possesses a keen eye for physical and emotional detail.When the feisty grandmother pleads with the jilted bride-to-be from outside the locked room to not be disheartened the bride's kid brother quietly brings a chair for the old lady..... Bahl 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. By the time the journey ends you don't care where Rani is. She will be fine wherever life takes her.