2015 – The year for strong female roles!

8 years ago

Deepika Padukone

This was a year when strong author backed female roles were not only in abundance, but were also responsible for the box office performance of the films. This just goes to show that audiences will pay good money to watch a good role – irrespective of the gender of the performer – all the most reason that filmmakers should capture the phenomenal talent pool that we have with these actresses to create roles especially for them.

Kangana Ranaut – if there was any doubt about Kangana’s ability to steal the show after Queen, it was stamped out with this virtuoso performance in the double role in Tanu Weds Manu Returns. She won hearts the first time round as the caustic and fiery tongued Tanu and this time as the no-nonsense, tomboy with a golden heart athlete Kusum. Her transformation was so complete that audiences actually found it hard to believe the same actress was playing such different roles so adeptly in the same film. Kangana Ranaut just made it easier for filmmakers and actresses to create roles that challenge them and also proved that you can have great female characters that will propel a film to box office glory as TWMR netted almost 250 crores at the marquee – making Ranaut as valuable as any Khan!

Priyanka Chopra is a seasoned actor who is often overlooked as an actress because she is such a star. Fact of the matter is she is clearly one of the most driven and ambitious actresses of her generation – as evidenced by her gumption to bag and star in a big league network show on ABC as the lead, no less, in Quantico. The reviews of the show are not flattering but she has gone where no mainstream Bollywood actress has ever dared to go before. Her performance as Kashibai the first wife in Bajirao Mastani also showed us that she can really act even in a minor role – and in one with such quiet heartbreak.

Deepika Padukone – Deepika Padukone has grown quietly into a star, who can be depended on to turn in a confident and measured performance. Her acting chops are still not in the league of the all-time greats but she has worked hard on her craft to become an actress who is immensely watchable and often delivers better in a role that doesn’t demand over the top histrionics like Piku. She also played the muse in Tamasha with verve and elegance and she played the lover Mastani with a regal demeanor. Deepika is one of those stars who is showing us she can act as well and it is a pleasure to watch this evolution!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan made her comeback this year after five years away from the marquee. Her last film was the Sanjay Leela Bhansali magnum opus Guzaarish in 2010. It goes to show how strong her draw is on the box office that her return was a project that was billed as her big comeback in the promotions as well. She played the main protagonist who is both a mother and a lawyer and who must defend a rapist to ensure her daughter is left alive. Despite the middling box office performance of the film and the criticism against the stylistic devices employed by director Sanjay Gupta, it is safe to say Ash is back and we look forward to her next project with Karan Johar entitled Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

Kalki Koechlin played Laila in the critically acclaimed Margarita with a Straw by director Shonali Bose. Kalki’s character Laila is a teenager with cerebral palsy who is wheelchair bound, and an aspiring writer. Her journey takes her to New York where she falls in love with Pakistani activist who is blind and also happens to be a girl. This film about disability with dignity and ambition, about sexuality and identity has won plaudits and also great praise for Kalki as a performer. The film revolves around a lead character who just happens to be a girl – which just goes to show good story telling is almost gender neutral – and great characters can spring from anywhere – if you allow the best talent to showcase their strengths.

Radhika Apte has had a great year playing the seductress in Ahalya, the confused pawn of revenge in Badlapur, and the wife who inspired her husband to carve out a path through a mountain in Manjhi the Mountain Man. Audiences may remember her as the housewife in Shor In the City – and she was a scene stealer in that film as well. A short break and a stint abroad has bolstered Radhika’s thespian presence and made her an actor to watch out for. She is an actor who proved that you can make a mark in any film – be it a YouTube Short fillm or a cameo in a big feature film.

Shefali Shah is another actor who proved in Dil Dhadakne Do that it’s the power you pack in your performance that’s important and not the billing or the length of the role. Her quiet desperation as Neelam Mehra whose marriage is a façade and who can see her kids struggling with the unhappiness of trying to be what they are not was a performance worthy of an award. In a film stuffed with great actors and well scripted roles, she stole she show as she stuffed cake into her mouth trying to stuff her tears away when she realized how little she meant to her husband. Her role also shows that it’s not just leading roles where women can make an impact but also cameos and second lead roles – and that writing a good character for a woman makes the entire film a better one as well rather than one with two dimensional female characters.

Konkona Sen Sharma & Tillotama Shome – Nayantara’s Necklace & the mother in Talvar – Both Bengali actresses starred together in Jaydeep Sarkar’s beautifully sad film about female friendship and the quiet desperation of the lives of housewives. Konkona also played another nuanced yet complex character as Nutan Tandon whose daughter is found murdered in their apartment in Noida – in the film Talvar based on the Aarushi Talwar murder case. Both roles showcase her acting chops as well as the possibility of creating all female universes like the one in Nayantara’s Necklace where their issues and concerns are given as much importance as those in the male domain. It just goes to show a film is not limited or constrained by focusing on the female domain but instead it opens up a whole other world for viewers that are starved for such films. Nayantara’s Necklace also scores on the Bechdel test in which a film is judged if it features two female characters speaking to each other about something other than a man.

Richa Chadda / Shweta Tripathi – Both the lead actresses of Masaan deserve high praise for being part of one of the most sensitively etched stories of the year – in which love, life, death and the city of Varanasi in all its foibles and glory is depicted so beautifully. Richa Chadda delivers an understated almost catatonic performance as Devi a girl who is caught having an affair with a boy and when they are arrested by the police, her lover kills himself in the washroom. She is in fact shown watching a porn film before this scene – just to underscore the fact that she is not some victim here but a willing and active participant in her own sexual agency who sees nothing wrong in premarital sex even if her father is a respected pundit on the banks on the Ganges. Similarly Shweta Tripathi’s character Shaalu Gupta actually falls for a lower caste boy and she is the one who suggests the bold step of running away together when they realize their families won’t approve of their intercaste match. Masaan is a rich study of real life female characters who aren’t stereotyped or typecast but instead have their own thoughts and desires and act as free agents of their own lives and pay the price for it but won’t have it any other way.