Watch it to know that a woman did live like this!!. Review on Mary Kom

I started off my day by tweeting that there are three things to be completed by the end of the day today. The first one was to finish off some work related tasks, the second was to watch this flick and the last one was to attend a Pankaj Udhas concert. I feel glad that I have been able to do it all and here I am to share my views on the movie too.

First things first, I never knew or rather heard of a boxing sensation by name Mary Kom until the 2012 Summer Olympics when she won a bronze medal for India in the flyweight category. Talks on this movie has been going around from well over a year now and I wanted to watch this on Day 1 as I am interested in movies that fall under the biographical sports drama genre.

As I have done with my earlier reviews, I would like to write more on the experience of watching this movie than to state the story here which is already available on a number of websites. However, there is not much to the story as the movie sort of chronicles the struggles, family life, achievements of an Indian woman who rises from all the obstacles ranging from not-so-supporting parents to living in a male chauvinist society to ultimately emerge triumphant in a chosen vocation of her choice which in this case is Boxing.

I chose to watch this movie in a big single screen theatre than a multiplex for issues related to time schedules and surprisingly felt I had made both a right and a wrong choice. A right one because the theatre was good enough to not make me miss anything that a multiplex can offer but the wrong part of it was the crowd. In such a huge threatre there were hardly any people watching this movie and I hate watching movies like this in a not-so-packed cinema halls(especially for a movie like this that requires screams, whistles and all sorts of cheer)

The best thing about the movie is the cast and a few moments of emotional high-points. There was no one I felt who didn't perform or do justice to the role. When I first heard of  Priyanka playing the role of Mary Kom I tried to picturize her as a typical Manipuri gal like Mary Kom and felt incongruous. However, It is PC who has given one of the best performances I have seen in recent times(maybe after Barfi). It clearly shows in the character on screen how much of hard work and practice it must have taken PC to get set for this role. PC and Mary don't resemble at all on any given angle but PC convinces us through her act though. Darshan Kumar as Onler Kom and Sunil Thapa as Coach play sketchy yet justifiable roles.

I haven't followed Mary Kom a lot or read her autobiography "Unbreakable" to know how much of the plot in the movie is accurately portrayed. I would stick to the "Watch it to know that a woman did live like this" title and say that going by the story it is very surprising how a young gritty gal picking up fights with guys on streets accidentally meets a Boxing coach and goes on to become so biiiiiiiiiiig. It's obviously inspiring as this is not just a rags to riches story but also a story that touches how a simple, lower-middle-class gal, living an ordinary life with not much of facilities creates extraordinary circumstances for herself and brings honor to our country while paralleling a life of a wife and a mother in a familial state of affairs. Keeping all that in mind I think it deserves to be watched at least once to just to know about Mary Kom and the Boxer that she is.

There are some amazing moments which I like to call as emotional high-points right from the start where a young Mary Kom is not getting acceptance from her father to pursue her dreams of a boxing career to her meeting with her coach to her turn of events that leads to marriage and children and then her slow down as a boxer and again coming back to the world of Boxing to be rejected and laughed at which later leads to extensive training and getting her back on track and the climax where Mary wins a tournament to announce her arrival back into the Boxing ring.

What is lacking in this movie is the content required to show the details of circumstances and the psyche that made Mary Kom what she is today. The screenplay doesn't engross the audiences as it seems like everything is shown to them as if all of the chronicles of a legend are played one after the other. I heard many people talk negatively about the movie while in the theatre and while walking out of the threatre.

Do give it a one time watch but don't expect a dramatic biopic expect for a great PC's performance.