Simran review: A feisty Kangana canvas but it won’t steal your heart

Yes, the banks welcome demure young ladies who come and say “Stick ’em up” without any double meaning involved! Though the runtime is reasonably short at just over two hours, the pace slackens in the second half and it is mainly because of Kangana that you can’t take your eyes off the screen. But a decent watch, to start with.

What I enjoyed most about this film is that it has no pretensions to largeness, nor does it make any effort to lionise or romanticise Praful or her life.

Praful Patel, (Kangana Ranaut) a divorcee, lives with her parents in Atlanta. The pixie cut hairstyle in her natural curls makes the character of Simran played by Kangana Ranaut look uber chic and modern.

The actress who is Akshay Kumar’s wife got into legal trouble during Lakme Fashion Week when she unbuttoned her husband’s jeans. She is not someone else who you expect to hear of only in the news media or fiction.

Praful, on her part, is no weeping damsel in distress. She definitely rules out marriage or any man as an end to fulfilling her dreams. The result is that even while giggling at her eccentricities it is hard to escape the realisation that this is just a regular could-have-been-my-next-door-neighbour kind of woman. And therein lies the beauty of Simran. But in the land of the free and the home of the courageous, Praful still lives with her very Indian parents – so just how free or fearless can she really be? Yet she then embarked on a one-woman, five-week crime spree, robbing banks in Arizona, California, and Utah. But then she loses a big amount in Las Vegas. And gets to savor the flavors of high life! Much like her real life right now, Kangana plays a character that is unapologetic about her choices, extremely proud of what she has made of herself, head strong, and who hasn’t lost ambition despite all odds up against her. Did they do her story justice? She wins her first stint and goes back for more later.

However, all of it seems so self-indulgent that neither the film nor the protagonist is successful in making the audience empathise or identify with her. Be it her Gujarati accent, her perfectly relatable eye-rolls at the sight of an attractive man, the way she wrestles with patience and finally disintegrates into a mass of rage while arguing with parents, Ranaut is a treat to watch. She falls in love, and falls out of love too. Lovable in all her mistakes. Despite Praful carrying out many bank robberies (more easily than we all legally withdraw money!), no one ever spots the culprit’s automobile number as there is not a soul outside the banks (and no one is rushing out) when Praful runs away in her auto.

While the film revolves around the character of Praful Patel aka Kangana, one of the most heart touching tracks in the film is lead by Sohum Shah. I am an actor, I’ll get a job regardless.