Movie Review: Shabaash Mithu

Rating: 2.5 of 5

Star Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Vijay Raaz

Director: Srijit Mukherji

The surge in content revolving around sports and especially biopics has almost trained our minds to automatically predict the storyline and if it doesn’t serve as a hooking introduction, just quit it. Because 9 out of 10 times the blueprint ends up looking the same, creating zero to no impact. So, the above-mentioned situation is highly unavoidable when there is yet another sports biopic from an actor who has given another in the same year. Follow SpotLife Asia for the latest news and updates.

Enters Srijit Mukherji with writer Priya Aven to shape the fictionalized biopic of the game changer Mithali Raj, whose victory in the real world is still fresh in our minds. Together they manage to win the introduction war as they chose to take the basic route of going linearly to tell the story. We meet an 8-year-old beautiful girl who is learning Bharatnatyam. The opening is so interesting because it isn’t about a girl who was determined since she was born, rather she was fueled by someone who was determined.

The entire part and which is a huge chunk of the movie when Mithali was a little girl who was introduced to the sport and later hooked to it is interesting and entertaining. The idea of focusing more on the journey of this girl than her achievements also happens to be the cherry on the cake.

Taapsee Pannu has the art of changing her body language effortlessly and visibly. Observing her since Manmarziyaan, the actor uses her physicality to play her characters and somehow makes them all look different. Entering after a good 35 minutes, she manages to create an impact in the first half. It is in the second half where the continuity breaks and she ends up looking and behaving like Taapsee Pannu and not the Mithali Raj from the first half. Vijay Raaz gets to play a part he can sleep walk through and does it just right! Special mentions to the two little girls who are so adorable and amazing at their jobs. Check out the latest entertainment news on SpotLife Asia.

Srijit Mukherji is stuck between creating a to the point, serious sports biopic like Jhund, and also one that moves people emotionally. He ends up creating one that is completely neither of the two but something entirely confused. Like as a director he choses to open his movie with a scene that we are going to see in the second half, was that another teaser before the movie? He plugs in some scenes with a shayari in the background, or just a spoof like character making them look like those 30 second Melo dramatic advertisements.