Simran Movie Review

Kangana Ranaut has been making the news a lot recently for all the wrong reasons. She’s preferred to talk about her personal life rather than the movie Simran, which she was promoting. The trailers of Simran have a major Queen hangover but will the movie be as good as Queen?

Story: Simran is about Praful Patel (Kangana) who is a Desi immigrant living in the USA and is a divorcee. She is full of spunk but there are complex layers brewing in her character. One find day she wins at a game of Baccarat and wins a lot of money which she conveniently splurges on high lifestyle items. She ends up gambling more and more and with each turn, she ends up losing a lot more money. To compensate her losses she resorts to a life of crime where she robs banks in Atlanta. Is she finally caught? Watch the film to know.

Screenplay and Direction: Simran is a movie which is inspired by the real life exploits of one Sandeep Kaur who resorted to bank robberies to sustain her high lifestyle. Director Hansal Mehta and writers Apurva Asrani and Kangana herself, tread the prickly matter with a matter of fact touch and make it lighter. Simran had the tailor made idea to be a thriller but instead ends up being a comedy thriller which is neither a good comedy nor a good thriller. It is a mismatch of genres which could have worked in theory really well but unfortunately the execution falls short on various levels. A handful of boring sequences don’t help the entertainment quotient of the film either.

Simran has the looks and feel of an English indie film because of the cinematography and the costume design which is accentuated by the fine production design. If director Hansal Mehta wanted the indie look for his film, the crew has delivered on that count perfectly. The editing of the film is decent although Simran has a tendency to feel overlong even at a mere 2 hours of running time. The songs of Simran are decent and give the treatment of the film nice little touches. 1 song should have remained on the cutting floor.

Acting: Simran feels like a showreel for the acting talents of Kangana Ranaut. She delivers and how. She is full of bravado in times of adversity. She doesn’t lose grip of her character throughout the film but there are a few scenes where her acting comes across as too experimental or spontaneous and sometimes even repetitive. But whatever she does, it works. Sohum Shah who plays her fiance has the looks to carry of his character and does a dependable job. Hiten Kumar and Kishori Shahane who play her parents are good actors but they don’t have more than one dimension in their roles.

Conclusion: Simran is a film which had a gem of an idea behind it (thanks to the real life drama of one Punjabi girl in America) but trying to make it light and giving it a comedic touch doesn’t work for the betterment of the film. Simran wastes one of the better Kangana Ranaut performances because it isn’t quite sure what type of a film it eventually wants to become. It won’t be wrong to say that writer Kangana has ruined a great performance by the actress Kangana.

Pros:

• Kangana’s amazing performance
• The production design, costume design and cinematography make it feel like an indie film
• The background music is decent

Cons:

• Mismatch of genres
• Has quite a few boring moments
• Takes time to fully come into its own

Rating: