Team FC
Of the three films that Padukone has done with director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, this one was the most controversial and saw the actor delivering one of the most listless performances of her career.
Mastani has the kind of entry that is usually reserved for heroes. Bajirao (Ranveer Singh) is strategising in his camp with his trusted aide when an unknown warrior storms the peshwa’s tent. Guards rush in, but can’t match the invader’s sword-wielding skills. It takes a kick to the chest, from the peshwa, to finally able to stop the stranger, whose helmet comes off to reveal a cloud of brown hair.
Ayan Mukerji’s coming-of-age romantic drama about four friends was a breakout film for Padukone. She was saddled with a role that felt clichéd in parts, but Padukone’s performance was endearing enough to make you overlook eye-roll-inducing ‘twists’, like how the nerd is transformed into a desirable beauty when she ditches her glasses. In the hands of a lesser actor, Naina in Yeh Jawaani… could easily have felt annoyingly passive. Instead, we rooted for Naina because Padukone made her a charming combination of silly and self-aware.
No one could have imagined that in a Rohit Shetty action spectacle that has Shah Rukh Khan in the lead, it would be Deepika Padukone who would be the scene stealer. Meenamma, with her bokwas accent, was imagined as a caricature whose only function in the Chennai Express universe was to give Khan opportunities to woo audiences as a Shettified 40-year-old virgin.
Imtiaz Ali’s film about a troubled young man who, to quote Freddie Mercury, wants to break free and is grappling with mental illness didn’t really have much space for anyone other than the hero. Tamasha is all about Ved (Ranbir Kapoor), and his love interest Tara is a frustratingly underwritten role that Padukone nevertheless managed to redeem with her performance.
When Padukone decided to turn producer, she chose as her director Meghna Gulzar and together, they set out to make a film inspired by the life of acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal. Just for that, Padukone deserves applause. Additionally, she chose to star in a film that not only sent out a powerful message, but did so by obscuring the one thing she was most famous for: Her beauty. It was as though Padukone was exploiting her looks to make the public pay attention to a subject that most choose to ignore
Padukone reunited with Cocktail director Homi Adajania for a very different film. Leaving the gloss and excess of commercial Bollywood aside, Adajania retreated to Goa, to tell a gentle, comic love story filled with delightfully eccentric characters, including the “Casanova of the Konkan”. Finding Fanny had fantastic performances by Dimple, Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapur — and Padukone shone as bright as her legendary colleagues. She played Angie, who is our guide through the ways and whimsies of the fictional village of Pocolim.
Shakun Batra’s film about urban angst and infidelity often feels self-indulgent and contrived, but its best part is Padukone’s portrayal of Alisha. She plays a woman who feels trapped in memories of her parents’ unhappy marriage and who chafes restlessly at the restraints placed by her own marriage in the present. When Alisha’s paths cross with her cousin’s fiancé, Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi), there’s a spark of desire between them.
Padukone always looks beautiful, but even by the impossibly high standards set by her perfect features, Leela is something special. RamLeela was Bhansali’s take on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and he was the first director to properly realise how Padukone’s beauty could be used to make a cinematic impact.
Everything about this film took us by surprise when it came out. Parent-child relationships tend to be depicted with sappy sweetness in Bollywood, and usually act as a setup for a romantic relationship that will leave a woman torn between her family and her love interest. Piku ignored all those conventions and proceeded to tell a story that felt rooted and real.