Movie Review - Simran by Suhel Joihar


Simran’s Flawed StoryAnd Weak Screenplay Run Outs Ranaut.
 
Kangana Ranaut’s Simran finally made it to the screens this week. Kangana has been in the news for a long time now but her recent interviews made headlines with a barrage of personal revelations keeping the spotlight firmly on her right ahead of Simran’s release. In all fairness, raking up a controversy just ahead of a film’s release is now cliché and one must say Kangana has used this ploy to the optimum. But let's talk about Simran rather than Kangana.

Directed by Hansal Mehta, Simran is the story of a 30 plus old middle-class woman Praful Patel (Kangana Ranaut), who is badass, confident, adventurous, ambitious and full of life. Divorced from her husband she resides in Atlanta (Georgia) along with her hyper critical parents (Kishori Shahane and Hiten Kumar). She works as a house keeper in a high end hotel for a living, though she always wanted to enjoy her life. Praful’s dream is to own a mall apartment but the mortgage doesn’t come through. To top it off she makes a few bad decisions and ends up blowing all her savings at a casino table in Las Vegas. Once she loses at the casino she ends up in the debt of a loan shark who starts to make life miserable for her. To repay the debt, a desperate Praful ends up robbing banks and keeps on repeating the crimes. This gets her into a horrible mess. The rest of the story brings a resolution to the dilemma she faces and the choices she makes. In the background is also the hope of a robust romance between Praful and her fiance Sameer (Soham Shah).

Interestingly, Simran’s story is said to be loosely based on Sandeep Kaur aka the 'Bombshell Bandit' who had brief careers as a nurse-turned-gambler-turned-debtor-turned-robber. Sandeep Kaur who was arrested and convicted of bank robberies in the US in 2014 is serving a 66 months sentence in prison. Really wondered though why a film about Praful Patel is called Simran? There really seems not much logic to name the film as Simran?

The first half of the film manages to hold the audience attention to some level but the second half of the film is catastrophic and unintentionally funny. The biggest letdown, however, is the plot itself. The film is patchy and there are gaping holes in the credibility of the storyline. Running up huge gambling debts may be understandable but the rather childish bank robberies seem highly unlikely because the robbery acts in the film were repetitive, under researched and looked unreal. None of the three robbed banks had CCTV camera on top of the cashier's counter and they even did not have security guards. Even with the finger prints and lipstick marks available, police are unable to get hold of the robber. The plausibility of each one of the bank robbery coming through without a hitch, without the police getting involved – all this left us either bored or feeling foolish. Thrill totally went missing and it looked like a flawed story. The weak story line and poor execution make the film as messy as Praful’s life. The climax is rather flat and the end totally disappointing.

Hansal Mehta’s direction of Simran leave much to be desired. He seemed to have remained confused if he wanted his film to be a light, breezy comedy or a serious but short story of conflicted desis settled abroad. Story by Apurva Asrani and Kangana Ranaut as well as screenplay by Apurva Asrani along with dialogues by Apurva Asrani and Kangna Ranaut are bad. The writing is the weakest link of the film. One really wonders why there was such a big fight between Ranaut and Asrani over some mediocre writing work. Cinematography by Anuj Dhawan is good while editing by Antara Lahiri is shoddy. Music by Sachin-Jigar is listless although their background score is superb.

Performancewise, Kangana Ranaut does justice to her author backed role. The lightness, the recklessness, the desperation of Praful comes through effortlessly in Ranaut’s performance. The other actors like Simran’s parents (Kishori Shahane and Hiten Kumar), her fiancé Sameer (Soham Shah) do as required but most of the rest of the cast hardly make much of an impression since the film is all about Kangana Ranaut and she hogs most of the screen time.

On the whole, watch it if you’re a fan of Kangana Ranaut because besides her there is nothing else that you may want to go to see Simran for.   

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