 "Movie review: Aamir Khan shines in a cliche-ridden Dangal")
In recent times, a surfeit of real-life stories were imitated in Hindi cinema, namely Sarbjit, Dhoni, Mary Kom, Neerja. While some inspired to a certain extent, others seemed to have lost the plot in one way or the other. What makes Dangal stand apart is the fact that it sticks to a view that seems grandiose even in 2016— women are no less than men.
Aamir Khan is his typically terrific best as the once-upon-a-time-good wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat of Haryana who is dejected after having four daughters and no son to take his legacy in the akhada ahead. The former player laments to his wife (the wonderful Sakshi Tanwar for whom such roles are a walk in the park on the small screen) that his desire of seeing his son win a gold medal for the country in wrestling will remain unfulfilled.
He, however, gets pleasantly surprised when his daughters — Geeta (Zaira Wasim) and Babita (Suhani Bhatnagar)—prove that wrestling is in their blood as they thrash the neighbour's child who bullies them. The father then turns into a determined coach and trains the school-going girls to become wrestlers and win medals. He single-mindedly pushes the girls and pays no heed to naysayers. These sequences are some of the movie’s most scintillating moments when we see the girls put through the motions in a gruelling manner.
The disciplined ways of Phogat irks his young daughters so much so that they plead in front of their mother but to no avail. Both the actors’ smouldering delivery of crisp Haryanvi dialogues makes the first half a lovely journey. The writers, Nitesh Tiwari (who is also the director), Piyush Gupta, Shreyas Jain and Nikhil Meherotra, to their credit, keep the narrative straightforward. Yet, multiple scenes appear stretched.
That said, it is an unalloyed joy to watch the young Geeta give tough fight to boys in akhadas as Phogat continues to teach the techniques and nuances of the game.
The grown up versions of the girls, played by Fatima Sana Sheikh and Sanya Malhotra, are equally brilliant. It is not easy to make a mark opposite somebody who is known for being a perfectionist but they manage it more than ably.
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As Geeta goes to train under a new coach at the national academy in Patiala, the movie screams predictability in nearly each frame. With his subaltern techniques getting crushed under the coach’s more conventional methods, friction develops between daughter and father.
It proceeds with no unusual turn or surprise element until Geeta wins gold medal at Commonwealth Games in 2010. What impresses certainly is the attention paid to details. The focus in Dangal, sans a few scenes, never shifts from wrestling.
Unsurprisingly, Aamir Khan remains a constant in almost every frame, you cannot even complain because you continue to admire the father’s unstinting yearn for a medal and belief in his daughter’s talent in the face of naked defeat.
Dangal doesn't seem plausible without Aamir Khan as the paterfamilias of the Phogat family. His pitch-perfect Haryanvi accent and body transformation between his younger and older selves makes him a method actor's method actor. Be it the scowl as the older Phogat or the starry-eyed visage of a younger Phogat, Aamir Khan is in his quintessential elements.
Although the story of Phogat sisters is widely known, Dangal, quite smoothly, underlines the pathetic state of sports funding, training and bias against women's sports across India and females in Haryana.
The movie is neither grim like a Foxcatcher-meets-Million-Dollar-Baby, something Hindi cinema needs to tackle at some point, and absolutely amazing like Chak De India but it ambles along nicely. Mostly, due to Pritam's ridiculously exciting music, Amitabh Bhattacharya's stirring lyrics and Sethu Sriram's unobtrusive camerawork. The montages in the Dhaakad track are gooseflesh-inducing and so are the near-silent sequences where Aamir Khan’s eyes well up over his daughter’s defiant attitude. But come pre-climactic portions, the movie comes to a screeching halt.
Still, in a year when Indian girls did so well in Olympics, go watch Dangal for the solitary compelling reason of art imitating life so joyously in these demonetised times.