Alia Bhatt has already shown us her immense range right from the coming-of-age drama "Highway (2014)" to the pioneering "Raazi (2018)" but perhaps no other role has shown us her full scale of talent as Sanjay Leela Bhansali's visually extravagant and poignantly hard-hitting "Gangubhai Kathiawadi", out now on Netflix. In clearly her career-best performance, Alia moves from innocent to despondent and finally charismatically enterprising with such ease that the audience is left in pure awe.
Based on the true story of Gangubhai Harjeevandas Kathiyawadi, a brothel madam of Mumbai's infamous Kamathipura red-light district in the 1960s, who takes up the welfare of her fellow prostitutes and the right to education of their children as her life mission. Inspired from anecdotes of her life as per the 2011 book "Mafia Queens of Mumbai" written by Hussain Zaidi, Bhansali adds his own typically vibrant embellishments to create an eye-catching world full of glamour, heartbreak, lust, thirst for power and ultimately, redemption.
We follow the journey of the eponymous Gangubhai right from her being sucked into a life of prostitution after having arrived in Mumbai as a young girl with dreams of becoming a heroine. Her arduous journey from there to rising up the ranks to become the most influential power broker in Mumbai becomes a story we can invest heavily in, thanks to Alia's powerful performance that is both fierce and empowering ass well as oddly poignant and gutwrenching. Her romance with "Ahfsaan" (played by an excellent Shantanu Maheshwari) is eerily captivating and accentuated by the excellent music by the director himself. Every song sequence in the film stands out with the soul-stirring musical renditions, backed up by the eclectic dance choreography of National Award-winner Kruti Ramesh, especially the powerful "Dholida".
Having had her impactful sequences mercilessly edited out from SS Rajamouli's "RRR", it is perhaps fitting that Alia Bhatt towers over her male co-stars in "Gangubhai", with both Vijay Raaz's "Raziabhai" and Jim Sarbh's "Hamid Fezi" coming across as half-baked, bit-part roles that are never fully fleshed out. Ajay Devgn recaptures the same fervour with which he had immortalized gangster characters inspired by real-life dons, first in "Company (2002)" where he played a role based on Dawood Ibrahim himself and then later in "Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010)" where his character was modelled on Haji Mastan. As "Rahim Lala" (based on Karim Lala) in Gangubhai, Devgn oozes gravitas and mass despite it being just an extended cameo, so much so that one wishes Bhansali will make a full-fledged spinoff film based on the character!
Sanjay Leela Bhansali's maximalist style of filmmaking often overshadows the acting efforts of its leads but this is one movie that breaks the norm with Alia Bhatt's staggering performance standing tall against the typically jaw-dropping Bhansali sets and elaborately choreographed musical sequences. An immense portrayal from the actress who draws unnecessary flak purely for being from a film dynasty, this is one of the top female performances of 2022, right up there with Shefali Shah and Vidya Balan in "Jalsa" and Sakshi Tanwar in "Mai". Highly recommended!
