#Umrao jaan 1981 review movie#

Moving coda, climaxing with her performance of a mujra before dignitaries in her hometown, brings the emotional arc of Ameeran/Umrao full circle. Second half, which has more physical action, spins on Umrao agreeing to partner with Faiz Ali while still hoping to reunite with Sultan. When Sultan has to flee town after knifing another man and is later disinherited by his father, another nawab, Faiz Ali (Suneil Shetty), sets his eyes on Umrao. He falls for her and she - against all the rules - falls for him.

#Umrao jaan 1981 review movie#

In color-coordinated costumes that are eye-watering even by RaiвЂ™s usual standards of movie apparel, Umrao becomes the toast of the town, and is chosen for a solo song-and-dance ( mujra) for a local dignitary, Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan). Early scenes lightly sketch rivalry between Umrao and other girls, Bismillah (Divya Dutta, good) and Khurshid (Ayesha Julka). Renamed Umrao, Ameeran is trained in music, dance, poetry and social etiquette by her adopted вЂњparents,вЂќ Maulvi Sahib and Bua Hussaini (Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Himani Shivpuri), and in the third reel morphs, hey presto, into actress Rai. Dilawar carts her off to Lucknow, where he sells her to Khanum Saib (vet actress Shabana Azmi), head of an upscale kotha (brothel).

Main story opens in Faizabad, in Uttar Pradesh, with 8-year-old Ameeran kidnapped by Dilawar Khan (Vishwajeet Pradhan) in revenge for being jailed due to court evidence from her father (Parikshit Sahni). Dutta retains some of that versionвЂ™s changes from the book - making the heroine a softer, lovelorn character - but tries to reflect the novelвЂ™s flashback-like structure by having the courtesan narrate her story (from behind a curtain) to a listener. Original 1905 work by Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa was the first great Urdu novel, memorably adapted by director Muzaffer Ali in 1981, shooting actress Rekha to superstar status.