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Gunjan Saxena - The Kargil Girl

This movie is such a breath of fresh air. I approached it with a lot of trepidation, given the woman centric theme coupled with the patriotic theme. Why trepidation? Because women centric films often devolve into chest thumping feminism which makes me cringe. And filmmakers other than a handful convert patriotism to jingoism. And I can stomach neither psuedo-feminism nor the jingoism.

This movie is a simple statement of fact. It tells the story of a female airforce officer who is the first female to win the Shaurya chakra. In fact the ringing endorsement by the lady herself, swayed me into watching this one.

The director and writer is Sharan Sharma and he has kept the script beautifully simple. He doesn't manipulate the emotions of the viewer, as do the other so called patriotic movies like Uri.

Pankaj Tripathi with his thick vein of humor brings to the role of a father an amazing reality.

This is the third time that I am watching Jahnvi Kapoor and I feel she is rapidly maturing into a very fine performer.
I love this lady's voice. I think she has a great future in store for her.
For me her most defining scene is the one, in which she is getting her hand banged on the table. The play of emotions across her face without resorting to tears was very competent. She does play the character with a lot of layers, which I feel could be a reflection of her inner self. Whether this extrapolates into solid acting chops is a question for the future.
A notable mention is Manav Vij, who rings it in with his part as Gunjan's mentor.
The war scenes are few and have been skimmed, due to budget constraints I guess, but the minimalistic approach somehow works. And the flying scenes are well shot.
I hope a lot of youngsters watch this one and see the joy of doing a job well. Like Pankaj Tripathi says in the movie, a job well done is an act of patriotism.

The background score was good and apt. As is the score by Amit Trivedi. Bharat ki beti sung by Arijit Singh, has stayed with me.

P. S : Watch out for the Tuffy references. ;-)

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