In the first half of Shabaash Mithu, the low-profile coach Sampath Kumar tells a young Mithali Raj, after an indifferent performance in a practice session, that she should be grateful that there are no big social hurdles in her path and compares her background with that of her bosom friend Noorie who played for seven years without telling her parents. Later in the film, during a camp, off-spinner Neelu (inspired by Neetu David) almost graphically tells us how she skinned cattle with her father in a tannery in Kanpur.
Shabaash Mithu
No offence to the staggering records and stature of Mithali Raj in international cricket, but in a cinema hall, one would like to know more about the lives of Noorie and Neelu. After showing glimpses of a detour, director Srijit Mukherji sticks to doing a heavy-handed, formulaic sports biopic where the makers see the subject with a halo and paint others in muted shades. The film could have been a celebration of women’s cricket but as one of the songs in the film suggests, it focuses mostly on one butterfly. The rest have to wait for another producer to invest in their stories.
For a film that talks of giving women cricketers their pehchan (identity) and talks of parity with the Men in Blue, the names of most players around Mithali have been changed. Could any filmmaker take such creative liberty with the prominent members of the men’s team?
Like the naysayers in the film, the makers seem to have expected that the audience hasn’t followed women’s cricket. There is no mention of greats like Diana Edulji or Anjum Chopra. Only Shantha Rangaswamy and Mamta Maben have been mentioned by their first names. One could identify Jhulan Goswami only by the exaggerated bowling action of Mumtaz Sorcar.
Instead of recreating it, the makers have procured the footage of the 2017 ICC World Cup from a sports channel. So when the names Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, and Harmanpreet Kaur appear on the bottom half of the screen, it irks because the film doesn’t care to introduce them to us. Coach Tushar Arothe is conspicuous by his absence, and so does the statistic that it was Mithali’s second World Cup final as captain.
When it comes to non-cricketing aspects, lyrics by Swanand Kirkire and Kausar Munir are not bad but music composer Amit Trivedi wraps them into a stock score that often breaks the tempo of the narrative.
A committed actor, Tapsee once again puts her best foot forward to bring out the quiet resilience of Mithali. However, she plays the character with a straight bat and there are hardly any rough edges. Perhaps, she is pegged back by the safe storytelling. Very much like Mithali’s coach, Srijit expects Tapsee to stretch with one foot inside the increase. It results in laboured innings with flashes of brilliance.
It becomes all the more apparent after the winsome flamboyance of young Inayat Verma and Kasturi Jagnam who play the young Mithali and her friend Noorie respectively, without any artifice. It was Noorie who showed Mithali how her margam lies not in Bharatanatyam but on a cricket pitch. Their little joys and camaraderie form the highlight of the film and are the reason to get you emotionally invested in the film.
Vijay Raaz as the no-nonsense coach Sampat and Sampa Mandal as Neelu add to the texture but once the story moves to the centre stage, it becomes a checklist of familiar obstacles in the path of a female sportsperson in the country. After Chak De! India, Dangal and Panga, the exercise has lost its novelty and emotional pull. Here, Shilpi Marwah has been entrusted with the task of what Shilpa Shukla did in Chak De!: the senior who develops a grudge against an emerging star. The theatre actor does a good job of the part with predictable contours.
Still, Shabaash Mithu deserves a chance for the boisterous energy of young Mithali and Noorie. Look around, many like them are keen to bowl you over with their deft footwork.
