Shakuntala Devi is a biopic revolving around life of a Maths genius. It is directed by Anu Menon. It is a proud moment when women tell women stories. The movie was marketed as audience will get to know about Shakuntala Devi a human computer. The movie would showcase the journey of this ordinary village girl becoming this extra ordinary mathematician.
The script opens up with the scene where we are immediately introduced to a conflict between the mother and daughter. The audience gets to know that the story is narrated by the Anupama(Shakuntala Devi’s Daughter).
The movie goes to the flashback mode where the viewers meet the little Shakuntala where she is playing in the village and her talent with numbers is discovered. Soon her father takes this opportunity to make it a medium to earn money for the family.
When Shakuntala grows up she wants to explore with life and goes to London to further experiment with her keen interest in numbers. She soon climbs the ladder of success with the help of Javier a Spanish Mathematician.
The movie shifts to showing Shakuntala Devi’s personal life with husband Paritosh Banerjee and Anupama her daughter. This turn helps Shakuntala understand her parents better.
It is a pretty good movie but it fails keep the promise of showing more about the struggles of Shakuntala becoming the superhuman that she was rather than the movie is lost in all the conflicts and family life of the prodigy.
Now coming to performances of the film:
Prakash Belawadi as Bishaw Mitra Mani (Shakuntala’s Dad) has done a praise worthy job as a strict father who is only worried about money so that their house hold must run smoothly.
Ipshita Chakraborty Singh as (Shakuntala’s mother): who is concerned about the family’s welfare but cannot stand up to her husband and accepts whatever he is doing for the family silently.
Spandan Chaturvedi as a (Teenage Shakuntala) From a very young age the audience sees a spark and courage to stand up for the wrong doings.
Vidya Balan plays the Adult Shakuntala. She has managed to dig out the funny side of Shakuntala Devi’s personality while being the mathematician wizard quite effortlessly.
Amit Sadh as Ajay Abhay kumar ( Anupama’s Husband) provides the necessary comic relief when the audience has to deal with the conflict between the mother and daughter.
