I confess, I am in love again. I am Run out, Bowled over, completely stunned by this powerhouse of a performer. With Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Kangana shows every Khan, every Kapoor in the business that she’s the Hero they really need to be worried about! She’s got the swag, the talent and the charisma – that’s 3 khans packed into one.
Anand Rai’s story is really mad cap and his characters are ever crazier. The film starts off with an absolutely bonkers of a scene where Manu gets institutionalized for being mad. Tanu, who’s a lost soul in London, returns to Kanpur and finds her Mojo! She starts flirting around, creating havoc everywhere she goes. She’s the “patakha” whose “waat” is always on fire. She’s ready to explode. And explode she does! Meanwhile, Manu gets saved by his friend Pappi, who takes him back home to Delhi. And that’s when he meets Kusum, Tanu’s Haryanvi look-alike. From then on, things go from mad to worse!
The first half of the film is an absolute laugh riot. It is not so much the story, but the dialogues and the delivery that creates the magic. Every actor in the film does his/her bit with aplomb. Be it Madhavan’s awkward silences or Dobriyal’s one liners. Be it Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub’s madness or Jimmy Shergill’s stability. But it is Kangana who steals the show by a mile and 3 quarters! You are already in awe of her drunken, broken, screw the world, badass attitude as Tanu, when a thunderbolt called Kusum strikes you. Half the theater didn’t even realise the 2nd Kangana is actually Kangana. It’s that big a transformation. Not just physically, but the body language, the dialect, the gestures. And your jaw literally drops. You are as awe-struck as Madhavan in the film.
A lot of credit goes to Anand Rai, who gives Ranaut the ‘roles’ she deserves and she hits the ball right out of the park. So even though the films story goes into the absolutely lunacy zone in the second half and the director seems to be wandering in LA LA land, Kangana holds you spellbound. Watch her dance with absolute rage in “Main Ghani Baawri Ho gayi” as Tanu or walk determinedly in “Move On” or dance with complete abandon in “Banno tera Swagger (Sweater)!!” and tell me if anyone else can pull it off with that much panache! Watch her teary eyes drunken walk as she aches to be the other girl and tell me that you are not reminded of Meena Kumari. No wonder she’s been picked to play Meena in her biopic! No one else could pull it off.
As you can see, this is not so much a review as a love letter, an ode to the best performance I have seen in a long long time; probably one of the best I have ever seen. So forget about everything else, and do yourself a favour – Watch Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Get ready to do the double take at her double take and then bow to the Queen…
Rating: 7.5/10
P.S: I won’t really go into the technical aspects or the flaws in the central premise, because that would dilute the impact of Kangana’s roles. Go get angry, laugh and cry with her, and forget about the flaws in everything else.