In the Shabaash Mithu trailer director Shrijit Mukherjee and Actor Taapsee Pannu makes all the right moves

Srijit Mukherjee’s bio-pic  Shabaash Mithu  on former Test and ODI captain of the India women’s national cricket team, Mithali Raj, looks and feels different. There is a certain inherent charm in  Taapsee Pannu ’s reined-in confidence as Mithali.

There she stands in the trailer facing opposition from all sides like a candle in the wind. Elton John’s song was about Marilyn Monroe.  My candle-in-the-wind is  Mithali Raj . Imagine being a woman cricketer in a field filled with men. What could be more gender challenging than this?  Maybe being a female sumo wrestler?

Taapsee takes us through Mitalee’s journey of   self-actualization with the kind of hushed fuss that makes her a true pioneer. This is not Taapsee’s first sports bio-pic. Last year there was Rashmi Rocket where she played a Gujarati sprinter springing into success on her terms. Rashmi Rocket lacked the quality of gentleness. This one has it.

 My favourite moment in the trailer is also Taapsee Pannu’s favourite. It is when Mithali pleads  before the sports committee about women cricketers finding their own identity(pehnchaan). Committee member Brijendra Kala summons the peon and asks him to name five female cricketers. The peon, failing to comply, has the decency to look embarrassed.

“Ho gayi pehchaan?”  Kala sneers at Taapsee. Then at the end of the trailer there is a priceless moment of sanctioned sexism when a sports journalist asks Mithali who her favourite MALE cricketer is. Taapsee look so defeated I could have hugged her there if only I could do Woody Allen’s Purple Rose Of Cairo on her.

The ever-dependable Vijay Raaz plays Mithali’s coach. He is a riot in the sequence where he tells the child Mithali’s brother that it’s his sister who has been selected for cricket coaching. In a strange twisted way the inherent discrimination and favoritism of this moment in the trailer reminded me of an old Hindi film Aasra where the hero’s parents Nirupa Roy and Balraj Sahni visit  the  prospective bride’s home and choose the potential bride’s poor cousin as  their daughter-in-law.

The underdog-as-hero story has been done to death in Hindi cinema. It remains to be seen where director Srijit Mukherjee and Taapsee Pannu take the trope. Going by the trailer I see no bumpy roads ahead.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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