Movie Review - Queen!! Probably the 1000th review or so! ;)

How long has it been since I wrote a film review on this space?

I think the last one has to be somewhere in the month of May last year around my birthday.

So why the gap all these months? Not because there were no good movies that I watched... On the contrary, there were so many good and awesome movies that I have watched over the last few months. But none that I really felt like writing a review about!! Okie! Let me rephrase that, I did feel like writing about a few of them, some really good ones, but then lost the interest somewhere between the time the thought struck and the time it took me to get to a system! :) :)

But now, there’s this movie that I want to review here. Ok! Not so much a review, as much as an appreciation for the feel-good factor that the movie spread.

We went and watched QUEEN a couple of days back. Yes! This in all probability is the 1082438923587^th article that you’re going read about QUEEN.

But seriously how good was the movie? :) :)

I am a very big supporter of these films where the women walk away with the film in the end, no surprises there yes! But also very few of those movies around! :) English Vinglish was one; but much as I loved the whole way the subject was dealt with, it did not leave an imprint on me.

The tagline of QUEEN should have been - ;-)

 “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.” – Maya Angelou

QUEEN was so so good. I had a smile throughout. Kangana owned the movie. And I thought she was good only in those Fashion / Gangster kind of movies. But with this one, I have to say, she has come into her own! And what a way to take the world by storm! :) Most of the time, it’s those little things / nuances in movies like these that give weight to the entire film and carries it forward. There were a lot of those in this gem of a movie.

Before you second guess it, yep! Spoilers ahead! :) These are in no specific order… just moments that I really liked from the movie!  

The instance where Rani’s younger brother Chintu shakes his fist at the hero for making his sister cry! He doesn’t really know why she is crying, she doesn’t tell him of the marriage being called off. All that mattered to him was that his sister was crying. Oh, that fist-shaking was a very good touch! :)

Lisa Haydon as a perfectly cast Vijaylaxmi. :) She even got the accent down pat. Such a carefree attitude to life! Would love to emulate that!

The last scene in the restaurant where Rani meets Vijay, and she addresses the waiter as Roche. Simple yet subtle to show how much she has evolved from being a wallflower to the person she has now become. Actually the look of surprise on Vijay’s face said it all! Some other glimpses, like when he asks her in a previous scene if she had had alcohol and she corrects him saying that it was champagne and not ‘sharaab’, where she drives the car for the first time, navigating the roads with a map, and she thinks about the time where her then fiancé gets impatient with her for not driving properly. She is so engrossed in the driving that she ignores the phone ringing incessantly (call from Vijay!) obviously.

There is this one other scene that I thought was usual but not so much. She goes on to try a dress that is a little revealing, clicks a selfie and then I am not sure if accidently or not, the pic gets sent to Vijay. He sees it, he is stunned of course. However, she suddenly realizes that it has been sent to him, and then thinks about it for a second and completely puts it out of her mind. This can be seen of course in two ways. One, she wanted to make him jealous and see what he was losing out on (all pun intended), two she doesn’t care anymore, what he thinks or what he doesn’t. I prefer to think it was the second one! :P :P

The beginning scene – the marriage preps -  the thoughts flowing through Rani’s mind, about her mom still not wearing the new saree, that her friend was not yet there dancing at her sangeet, where her brother had disappeared to when she had entrusted him with her phone to take pics to upload to Facebook, and then an affectionate recollection that her fiancé is back from London and how he had put on some weight but in the right places :) – and all through these, the expressions on her face, the fleeting glances, the involuntary smile that lights up her face… I thought that the scene was very nicely done. :)

Kangana devoid of makeup is one beautiful girl. An untouched innocence that is so compelling that you just want to shield her from the big bad world.

And the best of all (this has been done to death in all reviews I am sure!)… That she said NO to Vijay. Yes! Glad. Very glad about that. There’s a whole world of learning in there! Also, the fact that she thanks him in the end for calling the marriage of. Very nicely done. The guy was dumbfounded to say the least! ;-)

Oh! And I am so so glad that she kisses the Italian chef. :) I was so hoping that she would – the guy was striking ;-)! Very heartening to see that! I would have been a wee bit disappointed if she hadn’t done that. The moment called for it and thankfully she delivered. Yay for that! :)

Bonus points for the FB timeline track at the end credits. And also for calling the hero a ‘kuttaaa’ ;-)  :P

Vikas Bahl, way to go!!!

Definitely a must-watch. Don’t miss this one!