Queen

Queen is a 2014 Indian comedy-drama film directed by Vikas Bahl and produced by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. The film stars Kangana Ranaut in the lead role, with Lisa Haydon and Rajkummar Rao playing supporting roles.[4] Rani, an under-confident girl from New Delhi embarks alone on her honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam after her fiancé calls off their wedding.[5]

Bahl wrote the script of Queen with Chaitally Parmar and Parveez Shaikh. Anvita Dutt Guptan wrote the dialogues for the film. Ranaut, who was encouraged by Bahl to improvise her lines during filming, is credited as an additional dialogue writer. Amit Trivedi provided the musical score and Anvita Dutt Guptan wrote the lyrics. Principal photography of the film began in 2012 and took 45 days to complete.

Queen premiered at the Busan International Film Festival, and released theatrically on 7 March 2014. The film garnered critical acclaim, with praise directed to the direction, writing, and Ranaut's performance. Made on a budget of INR12.5 crore (US$2.0 million), the film earned over INR98 crore (US$15 million) at the global box-office, emerging a commercial success.[6] At the 2015 Screen Awards ceremony, the film received 13 nominations, the most for any film that year, and won three of them, including Best Film and Best Director. At the 60th Filmfare Awards ceremony, Queen won a leading six awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress for Ranaut.

Plot

Rani Mehra (Kangana Ranaut) is an under-confident young woman from Delhi. Two days prior to her wedding, her fiancé Vijay (Rajkummar Rao) tells her that he no longer wishes to marry her. He explains that his lifestyle has changed after living abroad, and her conservative habits would be a wrong match for him. Stunned at the development, Rani shuts herself in her room for a day. Wanting to take control of the situation, she asks for her parents permission to go alone on her pre-booked honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam. After initially hesitating, her parents agree, thinking that a vacation might cheer her up.

In Paris, Rani meets Vijayalakshmi, who also calls herself Vijay (Lisa Haydon), a free-spirited woman of French-Spanish-Indian descent, who works at the hotel in which Rani stays. Overwhelmed by the new city and having gotten into trouble twice - once with the local police and once with a robber - Rani intends to return to India. However, Vijayalakshmi helps her out and gives her a tour around the city. The two have a series of adventures, during which Rani relives the memories of Vijay patronising her and forbidding her from dancing and drinking - which she's free to do in Paris. During one particular incident, Rani tries on what she considers to be a revealing outfit and accidentally sends a selfie of her wearing the outfit to Vijay instead of Vijayalakshmi. She quickly realises her mistake, but unbeknownst to her, the selie prompts Vijay to begin searching for her.

Eventually, the time comes for her to bid an emotional farewell to Vijayalakshmi and board the train for Amsterdam. However, when she arrives in Amsterdam, she finds to her horror that her hostel room is being shared with three guys: Taka from Japan, Tim from France and Oleksander from Russia. Despite being skeptical of the boys, she soon becomes good friends with them, and spends time shopping, sight seeing, visiting a sex shop, and meeting pole dancers in a club. At the club, Rani befriends a pole dancer, Roxette.

Rani slowly begins to gain confidence by taking control of her decisions. She also realises her cooking potential by winning a cook-off by selling gol gappas (an Indian street snack). She learns more about her friends' backgrounds and begins to understand how different life can be for people in other parts of the world. One day, the four find Vijay waiting for Rani in front of the hostel. Vijay apologizes to Rani and asks her to reconsider the relationship. Their conversation escalates as he tries to grab hold of Rani, but her friends retaliate, and she tells him to leave. The two meet up the next day to discuss the future, but Rani leaves abruptly, saying that she would rather speak to him after she returns to Delhi. She then meets up with her friends one last time at a rock concert she had previously chosen not to attend. After bidding an emotional farewell to them, Rani returns to India.

Back in Delhi, Rani visits Vijay at his home. Vijay thinks that she has decided to forgive him. Instead, Rani hands him her engagement ring and after saying "thank you", she walks away with a smile on her face.

Cast

Kangana Ranaut as Rani Mehra

Rajkummar Rao as Vijay

Lisa Haydon as Vijayalakshmi

Mish Boyko as Oleksander (Sikander)

Jeffrey Ho as Taka

Joseph Guitobh as Tim

Canadea Lopez Marco as Marcello

Yogendra Tiku as Rani's father

Alka Badola Kaushal as Rani's mother

Chinmaya Agrawal as Chintu Mehra

Tripta Lakhanpal as Dadi

Nayani Dixit as Sonal

Sabeeka Imam as Roxette

Production[edit]

Development

Producer-director Vikas Bahl made his directorial debut with Chillar Party (2011), co-directed with Nitish Tiwari, which won three National Film Awards. Since he liked the story of Queen, he decided to direct the film himself.[7] It was eventually produced by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Phantom Films, which he co-owns with Anurag Kashyap and Vikram Motwane.[8]

He wrote the script, the character of Rani was based on the people he had observed while growing up in Delhi. "I know life for girls is planned out for them by their families. They lose their own perspective on life and they are okay with that."[9] In a scenario where as a girl crosses 20, her family gets busy to get her "settled", she never plans anything by herself, unless as in this case of Rani, marriage plans go awry. Thus the script was developed so that in the "first half, Rani gets over the guy, and in the second, she gets over herself."[10] Bahl wrote the script of the movie keeping in mind Kangana Ranaut, however it was Anurag Basu who connected him with Kangana and helped cast her in the film.[11]

After her audition, actress Lisa Haydon, who played an Indo-French hotel staff member, Vijaylaksmi, practiced French for a month. Other actors Boyko Mish (Olik) and Jeffery Ho (Taka) were cast after auditions in London, while Joseph Guitobh (Tim), who played Rani's third roommate, was spotted singing on a street and was asked whether he'd be interested in working in Hindi film, though he couldn't speak English.[9]

Filming

The film was shot in late 2012 over a period of 45 days, starting with Paris, followed by Amsterdam and Delhi.[9] Despite shooting abroad, Vikas Bahl did not have a huge budget to spend on the film. He took a crew of 25 people from India to shoot the film in about 145 locations in 40 days. Locations were booked a couple of hours, before the crew would rush to another location as they often shot 3-4 locations in a day. The crew would eat their meals at nearby restaurants, and at times actors including lead Kangana Ranaut would change clothes in nearby public toilets and restaurants.[7][12] Since the film was not shot in a linear fashion, the colour of mehndi, applied to bride's hand was faded to match its natural fading.[9] During the filming upon Ranaut's suggestion some scenes were added, like the kiss scene with the Italian chef, and a small scene where Rani asks a stranger to click her picture in Amsterdam.[9] She even ended up writing a lot of her dialogues, and was given credit for the additional dialogues. In fact during filming, the director allowed all the actors to improvise their dialogues, to add realism to the film.[7][10]

The remixed version of "Hungama Ho Gaya" was shot at Club NL, in Amsterdam, where a Hindi song was played for the first time.[13][14]

However, when 90 percent of the film was already shot, film's cinematographer Bobby Singh died suddenly following an asthma attack on 25 December 2012, after just having completed a schedule in Delhi.[15][16] After seeing rushes of the film, Anurag Kashyap volunteered to edit the film himself and since Bahl didn't have any editors at the time, he too agreed.[7]