#thalaivi

Looking At The Numbers

Firstly, let’s look at things from a producer’s standpoint: to both earn money and provide an unforgettable movie-going experience, they need to invest in a project that has previously proved its engagement with audiences. Other than the holy trinity of genres I call RAD (romance, action, drama), a very prevalent and successful genre is a biopic. Take the last decade as an example; it started out with the promising Dirty Picture and  Paan Singh Tomar. After a row of impressive biopics back-to-back, Dangal hit the theatres in 2016 and became the highest-grossing Bollywood (Hindi) movie ever with a whopping ₹2,024 crores worldwide. This groundbreaking movie signifies the marketability of a biopic and how much it attracts the public. Even more so, in later years other movies like Sanju and Padmaavat have gained a considerable amount of revenue, further backing up this argument. So long story short, over the last decade, biopics have continuously proven that they are highly marketable and can gain a lot of money. Like, a lot.

Gaining Credibility

Other than the numbers, another thing biopics are known for is giving actors acting credibility (and by credibility I mean the gaining respect an actor gets from critics, audiences, and other individuals in the industry, not from the money the movie gains). An actor who exactly embodies what I am trying to convey is Rajkummar Rao. After his debut in Love, Sex Aur Dhoka, his later roles were either supporting characters in successes or main characters in flops. Although many critics praised his performance in these movies, he was still unable to gain respect as a leading man in Bollywood. That was until Shahid rolled around the corner. The movie was about a Muslim lawyer named Shahid Azmi and although it was a flop, Rao was immensely praised for his performance. He later received the Filmfare Award for Best Actor and National Award for Best Actor along with Suraj Venjaramoodu. After that, Rao was finally regarded as a serious actor and delivered other memorable performances in movies like Queen, Bareily Ki Barfi, and Newton. It’s not just the actors who gain credibility from biopics; the directors do too. Meghna Gulzar is a prime example of that. Before she made the critically acclaimed Talvar about the 2008 Noida double murder case, she made movies like Filhaal..., Just Married, and Dus Kahanniyan. According to the IMDB ratings, the movies weren’t that great, having an average of 5.6/10. But when you look at the IMDB rating of Talvar (8.2/10), it’s almost hard to believe it is from the same director.

Endorsing That Guy

Another sad and unfortunate reason as to why biopics are popular nowadays (albeit quite small) is because of endorsing or enlightening a famous figure’s public image. A few I can think of off the top of my head are PM Narendra Modi, Azhar, and Sanju. In all of these cases, the creative decision is to focus on other aspects of the person’s life, like in Azhar, the creators focused on the cricketer’s personal life rather than the match-fixing scandal which banned him from the ICC and BCCI for life. Another trend I see is them bending certain facts of their history to make them appear helpless. To avoid being political, in Sanju it was shown that Dutt first started using drugs on the set of his first movie Rocky with the fictional character of Zubin when in reality, he started using them in high school with his friends. Although a few of these alterations can be easily looked over, it falters the delivery of the movie's final message and not to mention distracts the audience members from the otherwise engaging aspects of the movie. It just feels like the movie has a hidden agenda, which pulls us out of the movie immediately.

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