"Padmaavat" Movie Review

The only reason I went to watch “Padmaavat” in the theatre was that curiosity got the better of me. And, as it often happens in such cases, I came out disappointed – I should have waited for the movie to stream, or better still, avoided it altogether. While there is no denying that the movie is visually great and has all the grandeur of that era captured in a way that can only be called ‘cinematic’, the overall experience feels hollow and empty – mostly because the focus is more on style over substance. (To be clear, I am considering the movie as a pure work of fiction – the makers have gone to great lengths to put it out there – and am not putting any emphasis on things like historical accuracy.)

“Padmaavat” tells a pretty simple story about a war fought for want of a woman – Sultan Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh) wages war against the Chittor ruler Maharawal Ratan Singh (Shahid Kapoor) in his single-minded obsession to attain the famed Rani Padmaavati (Deepika Padukone). Basically, a spoilt brat with a sense of entitlement wants something he can’t have, and goes to great lengths to get it. The fact that this story is told over a 163-minute runtime should tell you something. You would hope that some of the screenplay would focus on things like politics of the era/region, war strategies, etc. Surprisingly, there is not even a lot of time spent on the relationship between Rani Padmaavati and Maharawal Ratan Singh. Their romance before their marriage is literally over in four or five scenes (maybe five lines of dialogue)! The screenplay felt aimless and haphazard, and funnily, the movie loses steam especially after Alauddin decided to wage war against Chittor – exactly when the setup is over and the main storyline kicks in. Again, the attempt to beef up (strictly as an expression, don’t want to offend anyone) a pretty straight forward story with anything is clearly evident here – so we have lots of screentime spent on Diwali and Holi celebrations while the enemy is twiddling their thumbs in the name of a siege. Even the climactic battle between Alauddin and Maharawal Ratan Singh, a-la the Hector-Achilles battle in Troy, is shown very briefly and barely holds one’s interest. The possibility of the battle sequences held promise, but hardly anything materializes. Though, to be fair, the movie was meant to focus on the heroine’s portion of the story, which gets a whole 5 to 10 minutes in the end – really not sure what they were trying to do here.

The movie is a visual spectacle and every frame is a painting here – no overstatement. It is clear that Sanjay Leela Bhansali has an eye for spectacle and grandeur, and every shot is beautiful. The music by him is also pretty good. That being said, the direction is heavy handed – the characters aren’t fleshed out, and end up being not much more than cardboard cutouts and caricaturish presentations of historical figures. The screenplay is the movie’s biggest flaw, and the editing comes in a close second. The dialogues have the nuance and subtlety of a sledgehammer. The CGI is decent at times, bad at others.

In the acting department, the weakest link is, surprisingly, Shahid Kapoor as Maharawal Ratan Singh. It doesn’t help that the character is the most underdeveloped. He seems ill-at-ease and it’s just a lot of posing in the name of being regal. Deepika Padukone in the (formerly titular) role of Rani Padmaavati is good, but again surprisingly, there is not much by way of character development and, barring the climax, too much to do. The highlight of the movie is Ranveer Singh by far, who embraces the evilness of probably the only fully defined role. His interpretation works well with the extravagant nature of the film, and he balances the humanity (or lack thereof) of the character with the exaggerated antics he is required to portray. He creates a memorable character, often despite what he is working with.

On the whole, I have to say that the movie felt like a pointless affair. Even discounting the controversy surrounding the movie and all the brouhaha, this feels like an exercise in futility.