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The arrival of Saina Nehwal's biopic was long-awaited by both badminton fans and supporters of the athlete. Being the first Bollywood movie to focus exclusively on the life of a female shuttler, Amole Gupte's Saina generated quite the buzz.
Trademark mole in place, hair clipped back and determination in her eyes, Parineeti Chopra shifted into the shoes of the Haryanvi jattni. Director Amol chooses key moments from the former world No. 1's decorous career and carves a story that would inspire upon a quick glance.
Also read: Saina Nehwal: A look back at Nehwal's best Olympic moments
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Despite being the first Bollywood movie on badminton, the film still misses the bullseye by a wide margin. Perhaps it's down to Parineeti Chopra's unconvincing lunges, or the film's formulaic patterns, but it fails to sustain the hype it created. So for badminton lovers and ardent fans of the 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, Saina Nehwal's biopic can be a tad disappointing.
With Saina Nehwal's chances of making it to a fourth straight Olympics permanently dashed, let's look at five reasons why her biopic failed to capture her aura.
#5 Saina Nehwal's biopic will feel like a documentary
Bollywood might be fairly new to the game of making sports movies and biopics on sportspeople, but it isn't completely unknown territory either. To its credit, the industry has produced the likes of Priyanka Chopra-starrer Mary Kom and the Aamir Khan-led box office superhit Dangal as well. However, grouping Saina under the same umbrella as these examples would be doing them a disservice, chiefly because of Gupte's failure to shape the narrative better.
The majority of the 135-minute long film feels like a documentary, thanks to its predictable and formulaic plotlines. There is nothing new or epiphanic to discover here. The audience is not given a single nugget of information about Saina Nehwal's life and career that her Wikipedia page might not have. It's this formulaic structuring of the film that cripples it, numbing the excitement even in the key moments.
#4 There is no mention of the PV Sindhu-Saina Nehwal rivalry
Saina quite consciously steers clear of bringing up the topic of PV Sindhu, her arch-rival and fellow countrywoman. Even though the film opens with her 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medal match against Sindhu, Gupte shows Saina Nehwal playing against Malaysia instead. The reason for this distortion of fact is never made known and the film chooses to be ignorant about her throughout.
For Indian badminton fans who often find themselves torn between their love for Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu, the complete absence of the Rio silver medalist is disappointing, to say the least. Although the two may not be the best of friends, there is no reason for Gupte to completely leave one of the star character's fiercest rivals out of the plot.
#3 Matches fail to recreate the drama of the original encounters
The one true challenge while making a sports movie is being able to capture the entire scope of the drama of the real matches it is based on. Gupte's Saina spends a lot of time on the courts, with Chopra firing away smashes to glory but is somehow unable to conjure the magic of a live match.
Unlike the nail-biting moments of Chak De! India or Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Saina never quite manages to put you on the edge of your seat and make you forget to blink. While Chopra's earnest attempt at essaying Nehwal cannot be put to blame entirely, Gupte's designing of the matches can be.
The climactic moment in the film comes when Saina Nehwal is shown facing off against Spain's Carla Martinez (based on Carolina Marin) at the 2015 Syed Modi International Championship. Martinez's grunts (like that of Marin's) become far too repetitive and forced, and Nehwal's smashes seem pretentious, hampering the drama of the moment.
#2 Saina Nehwal is only portrayed as the girl with a 'maar doongi' attitude
Yet another place where Saina falls short is in the portrayal of Nehwal's character. Badminton fans were eager to learn more and get a rounded idea about this rather introverted ace shuttler. Gupte's film simply fails to peel off enough layers and Saina remains the enigma she is with a penchant for having greasy aloo paranthas and tubs of ice-cream.
Fueled by her mother's relentlessness and father's quiet but passionate support, Saina Nehwal is only shown as a person who has a 'maar doongi' (I will kill you) attitude. As a result, her character has no layers and is very uni-dimensional as Gupte does not let any other aspect of it mature. For fans eager to learn more about their favorite champion, this is more than a little disheartening.
#1 Saina's biopic also confuses itself as a tennis film
While making a biopic, it is extremely crucial to stay true to the details of the person whose life is being portrayed. In Saina, fans were quick to call out one of the posters of the film, which showed Chopra wielding the shuttlecock in a tennis serve hold. For a movie so solely dedicated to a badminton superstar, a mistake like this be quite glaring.
The confusion with tennis continues further into the movie as well, and like many, even the creators end up mixing Saina with Sania Mirza, at one point. During the opening minutes, several newspaper cuttings are shown that celebrate the early achievements of Nehwal's career. A clipping of how 'Sania wins under-13 singles title' is shown as well. There is no reason to believe this was done deliberately by the makers, because for all we know, it might well have been a genuine typo, in keeping with the the theme!
