Movie: Mary Kom
Director: Omung Kumar
Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Darshan Kumar, Sunil Thapa
Rating: ***
Mary Kom starts with a poignant yet an usually cinematic sequence that it is of utmost significance in the life of any woman. She is about to conceive. Here, for our convenience, let’s name her a career woman. Her conflicts are universal. She initially battles against her father’s will and has to deal with the challenges of being an unconventional mother later. Omung Kumar selects a few episodes of the legendary boxer’s life and treads the middling path between a documentary and a dramatic treatment in Mary Kom. Some leave us totally warmed while the underplayed gaps between her life-events raise a lot of pertinent questions. Should a biopic be strictly about the protagonist ? Or should it have the liberty to focus on other larger issues too ?
Mary, as christened by her coach, feels insulted when her father makes an expected, chauvinstic comparison between aggression and masculinity. The storyteller, only implicitly conveys the dogmas and stereotypes surrounding genders. A match organiser warns her of the battlefield not being a kitchen to show dominance over a ‘male’. In a situation that invited a lot of cheer from the crowds during a bike breakdown, she tells to her supposed boyfriend ‘Tum safe ho mere saath’. The heaviness of a certain Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is nonexistent which throws light on the path and its relieving two-hour length .
In two of the most significant matches in the film, the director subtly interconnects the boxer’s domestic threads. The dejected father, when he cheers for her little girl from the television, in an almost poetic sequence influences Mary’s victory which seemed tough till then. Later, in a role reversal, after her minor sabbatical owing to motherhood, she plays a destiny-messenger, ensuring a match-win and internally knowing that the tense atmosphere in her home has come to a close.
The protagonist’s conversations with her better-half are bereft of melodramatic stretches. We wished to have been offered a lot of ‘why’s behind issues like marriage, pregnancy and post marital priorities though. The scene that has Onler delighted about her pregnancy news is very inappropriately staged considering that he was the very person who didn’t want her to give up boxing in the first place.
The bigger question is about her tiffs with the federation and the under-nurtured cultural showcase. Until her interview with a journalist, there’s little mention of the problems that the players ought to tolerate at the grassroot level. Also, when you are to relegate the statewide violence in Manipur later, why glorify it on a commencing note in the first place ? Except for the sequence where Mary Kom celebrates a regional ritual, it would have made little difference to us, even if the movie was based in any other lesser known place in the country. These are places where the film progresses on an imposed ‘inspirational’ tone and ceases to scale beyond the obvious.
We can think of pardoning Mary Kom’s flaws majorly for a sincere performance from Priyanka Chopra, who is accompanied by a natural Darshan Kumar. The presence of select north-eastern actors is a half-hearted attempt in ensuring the authenticity. Mary Kom takes some fictional liberties to stay free of the ‘docu’ flavor. The film may not be a befitting tribute to the boxer’s prowess but is nevertheless engaging.
Review by Srivathsan N. First published in Cinegoer.net