Dangal Film Review

Dangal was a film I went in to watch expecting to positively love : I love uplifting sport biographies, I love Aamir and then there was the added bonus of the feminism angle. What could go wrong ? Dangal is certainly a very very good film of and by itself- albeit pretty 'filmy'. However, by virtue of its genre, it does suffer from an inevitable sense of deja vu. As Trayi Ajit aptly pointed out 'every part of the story - more or less- was predictable right from the get go'. The training with limited resources, the empowering - but lets admit it, cliched- message of letting women dream and achieve big, the ineffective government sponsored coach, the inevitable losses and the eventual victory at the end..all of it feels like its been done before. I guess what makes the film worth a watch is how the characters make you care for them, inspite of the predictable story line. Yes, Aamir as the father with a dream is very good, and as is the norm with sport biographies, there is the inevitable physical transformation. But to me,it was the girls playing the characters Geeta and Babita, both as the little ones and the adult ones, that made the film a riveting watch. I enjoyed the first half because the cute as buttons little girls(especially Zaira Wasim, who play the young Geeta) are outstanding as they transform from playful, normal, naugthy girls reluctant to wrestle, to focussed sportswomen. The second half introduced me to the world of women's wrestling - and to my surprise, I discoverd that the I loved watching the sport. It does speak to how well the film is executed that inspite of knowing a very public outcome to the game, one still got goosebumps when the national anthem played at Geeta's Commonwealth gold medal win. I would certainly recommended watching Dangal - its a great film, even if predictable.

One thought that is bugging me : what message does making a film about a Commonwealth gold medalist send out ? Lets face it - getting a gold at the commonwealth is commendable, given the circumstance, but not the pinnacle of sport achievements, even by Indian standards. Did this particular story deserve a film..I wonder..and by making it, did the makers effectively rule out a film ever being made on Saakshi Malik, for instance..