CAST: Taapsee Pannu, Vijay Raaz, Inayat Varma, Kasturi Jagnam, Mumtaz Sorcar, Sapna Mandal, Devadarsini Sukumaran, Sameer Dharmadhikari, Brijendra Kala

DIRECTOR: Srijit Mukerji

Young women in sports have a story of struggle no matter where in the world they are. Its even more challenging in India where women are not encouraged to dedicate their lives to sporting pursuits or allowed to.

Mithali Durai Raj, the captain of the Indian women’s cricket team, not only carved out a brilliant, spectacular career for herself, but was responsible for raising the bar for Indian women’s cricket.

The biopic ‘Shabaash Mithu’, headlined by Taapsee Pannu, and helmed by Srijit Mukerji shows us the journey of Mithali from her childhood and through her struggles.

The film begins establishing that Mithali’s Bharatnatyam training helped her with establishing her footwork for her batting stance. She learns quickly that the first rule of batting is to guard your wicket and never get out.

With a steely resolve, she sets off to a journey that takes her to the most hallowed grounds in the world – Lords as she leads the team that plays England in the World Cup Final 2016.

The story depends on the strength of Maithili’s grit and the several road bumps and the somewhat smooth patches — grandmother and brother against her career while the parents  (Dharmadhikari and Sukumaran) support her journey along with a aggressively dedicated coach (Vijay Raaz), jealous team-mates, apathetic officials, overtly chauvinist atmosphere.

But the Women In Blue lose the final but gain our empathy and respect for a game well played.

The problem with the movie is that the drill has been so often done so it is predictable. In such a movie, you don’t really have to put the person’s entire life up for grabs; the screenplay could have been one match, one aspect of her life or one big victory.

The screenplay fails here and is unable to build any surprises for its audiences. The film is unable to keep its consistency intact. There is an unnecessary projection of Chak De style sequences like the one where Mithali-the-captain lines up her team for an ‘introduction’ with the dismissive officials of the premiere cricketing body in India, carefully not called the BCCI in the film.

The scenes in which the animosity between a senior player and the rookie are portrayed are so cliched that it’s like any other sport personality movie.  The cricketing scenes some amount of cricketing action in the fields but nothing spectacular.

The film is long, and flaccid in parts. A couple of team-mates get some scenes on their own, especially the one played by the very impressive Sapna Mandal: Raaz  is the only other performer who is of caliber. The background score is a agony because it’s over amplified in telling people what they should feel about the personality.,

The film does do a fair job of delineating the sad state of women’s cricket and the overall shameful neglect of the women.

Mukerji’s direction is unprocessed and leaves nothing to be interlaced. He dots all the I’s and crosses all the t’s.The songs are not anthems. Pannu is the only saving grace of this movie and wash-repeats her multifarious athelete performances with little or no fuss beautifully.

With a steely resolve, she sets off to a journey that takes her to the most hallowed grounds in the world – Lords as she leads the team that plays England in the World Cup Final 2016.

The story depends on the strength of Maithili’s grit and the several road bumps and the somewhat smooth patches — grandmother and brother against her career while the parents  (Dharmadhikari and Sukumaran) support her journey along with a aggressively dedicated coach (Vijay Raaz), jealous team-mates, apathetic officials, overtly chauvinist atmosphere.

But the Women In Blue lose the final but gain our empathy and respect for a game well played.

The problem with the movie is that the drill has been so often done so it is predictable. In such a movie, you don’t really have to put the person’s entire life up for grabs; the screenplay could have been one match, one aspect of her life or one big victory.

The screenplay fails here and is unable to build any surprises for its audiences. The film is unable to keep its consistency intact. There is an unnecessary projection of Chak De style sequences like the one where Mithali-the-captain lines up her team for an ‘introduction’ with the dismissive officials of the premiere cricketing body in India, carefully not called the BCCI in the film.

The scenes in which the animosity between a senior player and the rookie are portrayed are so cliched that it’s like any other sport personality movie.  The cricketing scenes some amount of cricketing action in the fields but nothing spectacular.

The film is long, and flaccid in parts. A couple of team-mates get some scenes on their own, especially the one played by the very impressive Sapna Mandal: Raaz  is the only other performer who is of caliber. The background score is a agony because it’s over amplified in telling people what they should feel about the personality.,

The film does do a fair job of delineating the sad state of women’s cricket and the overall shameful neglect of the women.

Mukerji’s direction is unprocessed and leaves nothing to be interlaced. He dots all the I’s and crosses all the t’s.The songs are not anthems. Pannu is the only saving grace of this movie and wash-repeats her multifarious athelete performances with little or no fuss beautifully.

If you have to watch the movie, it should be for her. The movie does no justice to the illustrious career of Mithali Durai Raj though.