Mr Rani movie review: Deepak Subramanya is a very convincing heroine in film that has its moments

2/5

Mr Rani movie story: Acting and stardom was, literally, Raja’s (Deepak Subramanya) childhood dreams; which was crushed by his parents who wished to see their son become an engineer. Unbeknownst to his folks, though, Raja holds on to his dream and sets out to pursue it, but finds out soon enough that the struggle is real.

When a video of Raja dressed up as a woman from a college skit resurfaces and catches the eye of a popular filmmaker, the latter chooses ‘her’ as the leading lady of his next. While Raja is not kicked about realizing his dream with a false identity, as Rani, he plays along; but ‘her’ rise to fame comes at the cost of great loss for Deepika (Parvathy Nair), who was the numero uno until then. How does Raja deal with this situation, given that he loves Deepika and is waiting in the wings to profess his affection?

Mr Rani movie review: Director Madhu Chandra's films have been about socially-relevant messages told with humour, whether it is about the education system in Vascodigama or mobile phone addiction in Selfie Mummy Google Daddy. In Mr Rani too, he slips one in about not succumbing to family pressure as far as education and careers go and pursuing one’s true passion. The problem is that the story he chooses to tell this is too over-the-top that the message doesn’t really register.

Madhu gives himself a prominent role in the film about an aspiring actor realising his goal of stardom with a little deceit – representing himself as a lady. Playing a filmmaker with a roving eye, Madhu reserves some of the film’s cheesiest lines for himself. Armed with a protagonist who is posing as a woman, Madhu plays to the gallery with midriff and cleavage shots of ‘her’.

It helps that Deepak Subramanya, who plays the title character Rani is the saving grace here and is quite convincing as a woman. From furtive glances to grace and femininity in body language, gait, etc., paired with great hair and makeup and the right outfits, Deepak passes off for a woman quite well.

Parvathy Nair, as superstar Deepika, has precious little to do in the film, which revolves around Raja/Rani and his pal/manager Manja (Srivatsa Shyam). Even Madhu gets more screen space than Parvathy. The rest of the cast have nothing noteworthy to offer and do their bit.

The problem with Mr Rani is that it falls in a neutral zone – it’s not entirely bad, but isn’t good either. Much of the ‘comedy’ in the film didn’t really land well for me, but that’s a matter of perspective. Am not a fan of that brand of comedy and yet, even I let out a chuckle or two.

Mr Rani movie verdict: Mr Rani is the kind of movie that’s best watched when you are in the mood for some silliness – with nothing earth-shattering. A film that you have no expectations from, so it may still entertain to some extent. But if the stimulation you seek is of the grey cell variety, this isn’t that.