Shakuntala Devi Review: Finally A Real Biopic From Hindi
Cast: Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Anu Menon
Numbers make Shakuntala Devi, the world knows. Known as the “human computer”, numbers radiate from all sides of Shakuntala (Vidya Balan) as she stands next to a board and looks like she’s thinking about her next meal or the tea she had that afternoon. What’s perfunctory to her is genius and unimaginable to the rest of the world.
Numbers also flash when director Anu Menon puts the year on screen. The film jets across years and decades like numbers wandering in Shakuntala Devi’s head, giving us moments in her life that elevate our understanding of the woman behind the computer. It’s 2001 now, then 1934, it crosses seas to 1955 and reaches 1968 before a brief stopover in the late 90s and 80s. This biopic, finally a real one from Hindi cinema, is about that process. Throughout the film, the word “how” keeps popping up as everyone gapes in awe of Shakuntala Devi’s talent. It’s a process she’s unable to articulate herself. Menon and Nayanika Mahtani (who has penned the script alongside her), don’t chase that part of the mathematical prodigy.
Shakuntala Devi begins with a note that it is based on a true story as seen through the eyes of a daughter, Anupama Banerji (Sanya Malhotra). It’s only fair that the film Shakuntala Devi demystifies the woman rather than her talent. This is not about the numbers.
Shakuntala Devi comes from an all-women team. Apart from Anu Menon and Nayanika Mahtani, Ishita Moitra has written the dialogues, it is shot by Keiko Nakahara and edited by Antara Lahiri. To talk about gaze would be obvious, so the question again is the “how” of the film. When her father books a young Shakuntala for ten “shows”, we see the parallel it draws with women’s participation in other forms of entertainment and how this is inverted yet muted. Her early interactions where she’s effectively auditioning her talent, the rooms teem with men. The first instance where we see women as the audience is in a classroom of young girls discovering her magic. The film is about Shakuntala Devi, but it moves between the points of view of the mother and the daughter with the same ease with which it teleports across years. In 1955 London, we meet Tarabai (Sheeba Chaddha), who runs a paying guest accommodation, with two men in residence. Some explosive details are revealed to send the men into shock but nothing as shocking as seeing a woman there for the first time. They say it in as many words to which Tarabai retorts that she’s been there all along. Shakuntala Devi is the kind of film that tries to widen the latitude a woman is permitted in her definition and scope. It is usually limited by a gender role, a gifted talent, an ambition or lack thereof, timid or intrepid. Anu Menon designs this film not just as Shakuntala’s biopic but also to insist on something larger, that the conjunction is “and”, seldom “or”. Shakuntala Devi, the film and the woman, contain multitudes.
Rarely, if ever, has an Indian biopic begun with a negative arc of its principal character. Shakuntala Devi begins as we see her daughter Anupama walk in with her lawyer. She has slapped a case on her mother for destroying her financially. And we see this friction in their relationship in nuggets of interactions as they live a nomadic life between hotels and performances. When little Anu is unhappy with the move to London, she complains that the weather is nothing like in Enid Blyton’s books in letters to her father.
The film is full of delicious humour in offhand moments (when someone says, “next level”, Shakuntala says “three floors?” and later exclaims the same when she buys a house of her own). As her mother performs mathematics on stage, Anu is performative in her daughterly ways, the detachment palpable as we observe Shakuntala, someone who grew up hating her mother, and Anu, someone in whom the same seeds are being sown. We don’t get the events in the chronological order but there is a Shakuntala-esque genius in the way Menon and Mahtani have structured their script too, the sum of its parts drawing a picture of a relationship that has always been at odds and yet retains symmetry in the way the cycle repeats itself. Shakuntala, the human computer, is a go-getter while Shakuntala, the mother, thrives in seeing her daughter in her shadows. Menon dials the tone of the film all the way up that helps Vidya Balan and Sanya Malhotra extract this dynamic culminating in them meeting halfway.
The scene and timeline transitions from Menon are thoughtful, rendering a brisk entertaining narrative pace to the film. When Anu refers to her husband (Amit Sadh as the genial Abhay) as the second biggest fool in the planet, he asks who is number one, and we move back in time to meet Jisshu Sengupta as Paritosh Banerji, her father and the man Shakuntala was married to. Shakuntala’s progressive nature is distributed naturally, be it taking to London’s hyper masculine academic atmosphere or warming up to and charming people from every part of the world, discarding the information that Paritosh is a divorcee like a cigarette butt, and writing a book on homosexuality in the 1970s. The film incorporates interesting visual idioms in its cyclical structure. When Paritosh and Shakuntala are in a restaurant talking about Anu, we see their reflections behind them on a glass wall, their past relationship reduced to an understanding friendship as Paritosh convinces her to put Anu in a boarding school. We later see Anu and Abhay reflected in a mirror as Anu fights her motherly instincts that threaten to derail her career. As Shakuntala decides to go on her tour, the camera follows her, from Paritosh cradling a young Anu to Shakuntala stepping out the door. When the couple decide to part, Shakuntala takes Anu with her, the camera pans inwards, creating a distance between us and Paritosh just as Shakuntala leaves a trail behind him.
Anu Menon’s film is about autonomy. Neither Shakuntala nor Anu enjoy a hold on each other’s life, they are their own people first. The same way Anu doesn’t have to be her father’s spokesperson for the lie that Shakuntala tells the world. Vidya Balan embodies this autonomy and gives it singular vigour. When Shakuntala says she’s amazing and not normal, we know she believes it. That makes the display a simple fact, negating any hint of arrogance. She employs little ticks from a head turn that smacks of impudence or the gentle gait she takes to as she ages, and her propensity to break stuff. The young Shakuntala’s enthusiasm is visible in her physicality and the older Shakuntala’s in her voice and delivery. The insecurity of a mother is truly felt when she returns to her childhood home as the daughter that she used to be. This event might be real or could just be a dark corner of her mind lighting up. Shakuntala can calculate root of two-hundred-digit numbers but Anu Menon shows us more by drawing her back to her roots.
The Shakuntala Devi review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Silverscreenindia.com and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.
Shakuntala Devi review: Vidya Balan nails maths and motherhood in a brilliant film
Vidya Balan as Shakuntala Devi does a great job portraying a woman who is unabashed about what she wants, no matter how socially ‘imperfect’ it makes her look.
Don't miss 4 stars out of 5
Friday, July 31, 2020 - 09:00
At some point in our lives, many of us have decided that we are never going to turn into our parents, that we will do things differently. But growing up, a lot of their actions can start to make sense. We may break some cycles, but we often end up becoming more like our parents in others. It’s a strange pattern; one that repeats more often than not, and which perhaps prompts parents to tell their children – you will know what it’s like when you have children of your own.
Shakuntala Devi, the late mathematician and Guinness record holder, was known as the “human computer” world-over for her ability to solve complex arithmetic in seconds. You will find a lot written and said about her for her mathematical talents and even other skills like astrology. But the film Shakuntala Devi does a brilliant job of humanising the genius through her relationship with her daughter Anupama, and bringing to life the reality of the parent-child cycle.
Releasing on Amazon Prime Video on July 31, Anu Menon’s Shakuntala Devi, starring Vidya Balan, is a biographical drama that explores the rise of the math genius. But it also gives us an insight into what lay beyond the mind-boggling calculations she put on display, and the woman who wanted to have it all.
Vidya Balan does a fantastic job of portraying Shakuntala as a woman with a larger than life personality, a wicked sense of humour, and who dared to want more than most, without a care that she was a woman. At no point does it feel like Vidya is trying too hard to be a woman who is ahead of her times as Shakuntala was; because she just is that way. Whether it is moments where she just states that she never understood the differentiations made for men and women, or when she stands completely unperturbed as the centre of attraction in rooms full of men, or when she questions the need for men to have women need them to feel validated – it is all seamlessly woven into the character.
It is also commendable that Vidya has managed to pick up Shakuntala Devi’s mannerisms and attitude for the character, without making it seem forced. For instance, the real-life Shakuntala’s interviews and demonstrations show that she would often ask the hosts “am I correct?” after she answered their math problems in a manner that exuded cheekiness and confidence, like she knew she could never be wrong. Vidya does the same in the film. She is an amazing but flawed person – just like any other – and it is her unabashed ownership of her desires and aspirations, and the struggles that come with it, that make Shakuntala Devi’s character so layered and a treat to watch.
A significant part of the film is dedicated to Anupama (played by Sanya Malhotra) and her relationship with Shakuntala, which is far from a rosy mother-daughter equation. But it is here that the film delivers some of its most heartfelt moments, especially in the second half. Sanya is convincing as Anupama, the girl who wants nothing more than a ‘normal’ life and a ‘normal’ mother while her friends envy her for being a genius’s daughter who gets to see the world. And then, impactful as the woman who wants to be nothing like her mother, but clearly carries her conviction and cannot escape the shadow of her fame.
It is appreciable that at no point have writers Anu Menon and Nayanika Mahtani slipped and made it feel as though we lose Shakuntala and begin seeing only a pining mother, which forms the heart of the tussle between the mother-daughter duo. Women are eulogised the most in the role of mothers, but only if they fit a narrow, and frankly unrealistic mould of motherhood. Shakuntala Devi is not only refreshing because it shows a woman who was not unconventional, but also because it drives home the fact that women don’t stop being themselves when they become mothers.
In an interview to TNM, Nayanika called Shakuntala a “feminist without fanfare”. Similarly, the film ends up being feminist without ever preaching or setting out to be so overtly. It is unexpectedly funny with plenty of laugh out loud moments, thanks to Vidya’s effortless wit and sense of humour as Shakuntala, and also quite moving in its portrayal of relationships, and the intergenerational trauma that occurs as a result of the emotional baggage from our past. But mostly so because it peels through the exterior of a 'genius' and shows us a woman with all the strength and glory of her brilliance, her gregarious personality, as well as her pettiness and imperfections.
It also holds up a mirror to society; how insidious gender roles are, and how these can subtly but systematically hold back women from achieving their potential. And above all, what is the price that a woman who refuses to be held back pays, and the rewards she reaps when she dares to break the rules.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.
“Am I correct ?” asks a triumphant Shakuntala Devi every time she solves humongous maths equations in insanely inhuman pace and jumps at the applause with childlike zest. The cheering follows on cue. Accompanied with some rousing background score and in the brightest of sarees, Vidya Balan plays her with full-blooded commitment and a full-throttle signature laugh ! Vidya is luminous as Shakuntala Devi and it’s simply hard to look away from her.
Helmed by Anu Menon, who also wrote the screenplay along with Nayanika Mahtani, Shakuntala Devi is based on a true story of our maths genius whose exploits earned her the moniker of “human computer“.
However, the film is seen through the eyes of her daughter Anupama Banerji. Shakuntala Devi's balancing act between math and motherhood that tested the delicate mother -daughter relationship.
The story moves forward in a non- linear fashion. From 2001 London we go back to Bangalore 1934, as a little Shakuntala solves maths problems as nonchalantly as reciting nursery rhymes. The parents (played by Ipshita Chakraborty, Prakash Belawadi) are dumbfounded . In no time, as her fame spreads far and wide, she travels all around for her unique “ math shows” - exhibiting her genius as she speaks out numbers that deal with tough mathematical equations as if someone is whispering her the answer while the room full of people applauded !
In London, when she is asked what is it that she loves about being on stage, her immediate response is “to see people’s face when they see a girl in chotis (braids) doing maths”. How ? How does she do it? Everyone asks her and Vidya just heartily laughs. Beating a computer, travelling the world, enthralling sceptics and admirers alike. Of the many lovely dialogues written by Ishita Moitra , the one mouthed by Tarabai (Sheeba Chadhha) In whose guesthouse Shakuntala stays when she first lands in England is my favourite - “Ek ladki agar apne mann ki sunti hai aur Dil khol ker hansti hai usse zaada darwana mardon ke liye Aur kya hoga”.
The portions where we follow Shakuntala Devi display her wizardry are an absolute lark. Hugely enjoyable and fascinating thanks to Antara Lahiri’s consummate editing. The treatment is also meted out without any judgement .
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Shakuntala Devi is shown in all her glory. “I never lose” she repeats a number of times in the film. Her almost absent childhood, something she regrets all her life, makes her want to overcompensate by achieving all that her heart desires. In doing so, the fact that she robs her own daughter of her freewheeling childhood escapes her. “Why does a man always want a woman to need him?”, another line that Shakuntala utters twice in the film at significant junctures .
The film is as much about the titular character as chronicling how the other relationships she forges manage to find their rays of light under her towering shadow. There's the mild-mannered Paritosh Banerji, played by a very pleasing Jisshu Sengupta, whom she she goes on to marry . And her daughter Anupama, played by Sanya Malhotra. A woman living a life unapologetically and portrayed without judgement. That is the film's biggest strength. Shakuntala’s predicament, rationalising the gap between her husband’s apparent support for her dreams and the lived experiences where conditions apply on how much “freedom” she can taste guilt-free and harmonising the two - form the emotional core of the movie.
Vidya Balan as Shakuntala Devi in the film. (Photo: Instagram)
Shakuntala at every step questions the status quo, be it as a math genius solving equations in lighting speed in what is primarily considered a male domain and a mother who is anything but the self-sacrificing, self-effacing presence we are made to believe is the true version of the role . Shakuntala comes across as terribly selfish and impetuous at times. It’s these human frailties and how beautifully Vidya portrays them that stand out - moments that remain raw and painful as we witness a woman’s struggle to have it all, the world at her feet and her daughter by her side.
Sanya Malhotra ‘s torn self, her rebellion against her mother’s highhandedness is supremely effective. Sanya and Vidya feed off each other’s energies. Highly emotional scenes have been handled with finesse . Amit Sadh plays Sanya’s on-screen husband. A small role that benefits from his charming screen presence.
It is only probably around the end, when the tiff between the two threatens to turn into a full head-on collision, that the proceedings take a slightly melodramatic turn.
That seems like a discordant note in an otherwise sweet-paced film that comes alive especially because of Vidya’s compelling portrayal. Pure joy seeing her bustling through her problems with passionate determination. There is room for every emotion except self pity . Our rating: 3.5 quints out of 5 !
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Sar main dard ho gaya ,with vidya cackling after every single dialogue
Average movie.
Boring and meandering.
Acting is good to Decent , but story doesn't have any meat.
Now to watch lootcase , raat akeli ,yaara ,avrodh
How to download?
I downloaded in Amazon prime to watch later.
Baaki torrent worrent Shy ka department hain.
LOVED the movie. I found it really good. The mother-daughter bond holds the film together, apart from her breathtaking genius. Definitely worth watching.
Vidya, another stellar performance under her belt. Absolute magical performance. Supporting cast and Sanya were good too.
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