Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl

Sharan Sharma's direction is superlative and it’s impossible to say that this is his debut flick. He keeps the focus on story, without adding a romantic angle or anything of that sort. He also keeps the duration firmly in check – the film is just 1.52 hours long. And thanks to his narrative, boredom doesn’t creep in even for a moment and there’s a lot happening in the film every now and then. On the flipside, the war scenes in the last 20 minutes could have been more thrilling and terrifying for a better impact. Also, Sharan fails to extract the desired performance from Janhvi Kapoor. More on that later!

The inspiring story of Gunjan Saxena is elevated by a crisp screenplay, impressive cinematography and direction, fitting background score and powerful performances. Janhvi Kapoor is convincing as the 24-year-old Gunjan. Especially in the emotional sequences. The tears of joy in her eyes when she gets selected for the Indian Air Force feel as real as the tears in her eyes when she faces her first rejection. Janhvi captures our attention whenever she is on the screen. The sequences in which she showed her anger, though, had room for improvement. Pankaj Tripathi is simply endearing as the calm and supportive father who never differentiates between his son and his daughter. His presence is a delight on the screen and you cannot help but laugh some times and cry the other. Angad Bedi, as Gunjan Saxena’s brother, delivers an admirable performance.

On both those counts, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is a mixed bag. What’s nice is the restraint, and lack of fuss with which the film is done. Trumpets don’t blast our ears every time there’s a sortie, even though Gunjan does get her backlit ‘Top Gun’ moment, as she strides out to the field from the hangar, uniformed and ready to go. The difficulty of being a lone female amongst a bunch of young men, bristling under the pressure of having to salute a woman, or having to watch their tongue, is all there. But staying away from high-pitch shouldn’t come off as lack of drama: even as the film follows its required beats, with Gunjan struggling against the standard ‘fauji’ what-are-women-doing-here misogyny, training and finally being able to take off, fighting off the enemy and rescuing injured colleagues, it stays a tad too sedate.

The real, steady moments where the film shines are in the emotional scenes, stripped of melodrama.

The Director and screenwriter, Sharan, ensures that the length of the film doesn’t become a hindrance to storytelling. He also avoids embellishing the film with over-dramatic and poetic dialogue. He keeps it as real as the characters of the film. Although, the writer should have paid more attention to the fact that in Lucknow, brothers are not called Dada, and neither are Balloons called Fugga in the region! Gunjan Saxena also could have done better in the background score and music department. Despite being a story that highlights grit, determination, and courage of Air Force officer Gunjan Saxena, the film came in the cross-fire of nepotism debate and meme-makers who believe all movies with star kids must be criticized. How these are itself the antithesis of the Sushant Singh Rajput movement is of course not a debate that is in the ambit of a film review. Maybe, for another time.