Queen was pending for a while. Many people told me that it’s a wonderful movie to watch and I always kept it aside for some later point. Finally, it is done and I liked it.

I thought this was a feminist movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. This wasn’t at all about woman empowerment. It was more about finding the confidence and courage within. The gender didn’t matter much. Being left at the altar is devastating for a girl, but the movie doesn’t remain fixated on it. It uses that as a trigger to take her out of her comfort zone. The rest of the movie is gender-neutral.

I remember when I first watched one of my friends smoke casually. It was in the early days of college. Smoking was a strict taboo till then and it felts like I didn’t know the person at all. We live our lives in a confined space carefully manicured by our family and friends. In fact, we choose our friends who fit our worldview and further fortify the boundaries of the space we have built. Some situations knock us way out of our space, directly into unknown waters and into the deep end. Some people perish and some people rise up to the challenge. Being left at the altar was that kind of situation for Rani.

She is from a small town, a daughter of a sweets merchant. Her life has always revolved around her family, shop, and cooking. One day a guy comes and makes her fall in love with him. She is a simple girl, she imagines a happy future with him until he leaves her for not being classy or modern. This is a blow to her self-esteem but she takes it head-on and goes on a foreign trip together, the one they had planned together.

Kangana is lovely as Rani. From a small-town girl to a confident one later, she handles all the phases naturally. Like I mentioned above, it is always a first time for everything. A first time when you are pulled out of your comfort zone. Kangana faces many such moments. From sharing a hostel room with guys to driving for the first time directly in the streets of Europe. The expressions of experiencing blasphemous moments to being used to them are just lovely.

There are your usual optimistic elements of the story which make you feel good and that may not be how life will treat you always, but movies like these bring up certain life-affirming feelings in you and that is their success.

Amit Trivedi’s music deserves a separate post and I am not talking just about the famous London Thumakda. That song is a staple sangeet song these days, including my own sangeet. The variety of genres in this album has something for everyone. Badara Bahar reminds me of songs Dev.D, whereas O Gujariya is directly EDM. Harjaiyaan has a soulful desi feel. However, the song that totally consumed me was Kinare. Even as I write this, I am playing Kinare in the background.

The composition of the song is thoughtful. The song alone tells you the entire story of the movie. It starts softly, like a small town slowly opening up to the attention of a boy, a soft bass tells that. The sitar brings in the zest of emotions. While she is gliding on those waves, a totally foreign instrument, the saxophone, adds a totally different experience. The use of saxophone is such a brilliant manoeuvre that for that alone I consider this track the best of the album.

Queen is not the first one to tell about the opening up to new experiences, but it is worth recommending for Kangana’s performance and Amit Trivedi’s music.