She may have been out of the spotlight for 15 years, but Bollywood superstar Sridevi still knows how to work her camera angles.
Dressed in a canary yellow jacket, cream blouse and skinny jeans, augmenting her five-foot-six frame with shiny beige heels, she cut a striking figure as she strode into a room full of reporters. When told she was up for a TV interview, she yelled for her makeup artist and proceeded to vigorously blot the shine off her face, looking into a handheld mirror.
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“She looks exactly the same,” murmured those familiar with her film career, which started with Tamil films in the 1970s before dominating Bollywood in the 1980s and ’90s with films such as Nagina and Chandni.
Sridevi was in town last month to promote the gala presentation of English Vinglish, her comeback film in which she plays the lead role, at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens in GTA theatres on Friday.
It’s the story, narrated to her by director Gauri Shinde, that drew her to the project, she said.
“I just fell in love with the script,” said Sridevi, 49, speaking so softly that you had to strain to hear her. “And Gauri also. We instantly clicked.”
In the movie, Sridevi plays a middle-aged Indian housewife Shashi, an expert at making ladoos (an Indian sweet), but whose lack of fluency in English makes her the butt of family jokes. Frustrated, she enrolls in an English tuition class when she travels to New York to attend her niece’s wedding. Encouraged by her classmates, including a Mexican nanny, an Asian hairstylist, a Pakistani cabbie and a South Indian IT guy, she comes into her own. Some romantic tension is added by Shashi’s French chef classmate Laurent (Mehdi Nebbou).
English Vinglish was inspired by her mother’s struggles, said debutante director Shinde.
“My mom faced similar problems of English language,” she said. “English is all pervasive, most dominant language, especially in India. People make fun of you if you can’t pronounce correctly or [speak] confidently . . . It’s true for my mom, and so true for so many people. That’s where I thought everyone could connect to it.”
Sridevi said she could relate to the story. She left the Bollywood limelight to bring up her two daughters.
“Touch wood my daughters, they never behaved this way,” she laughed. “But yes, sometimes they make a joke. We’ve gone through this kind of situation.”
With her saris all pleated and pinned to perfection, Sridevi doesn’t exactly look like a harried housewife in the movie. Nevertheless, Shashi is a far cry from the glamorous roles she used to play, when she was one of two Bollywood actresses who could be truly called a superstar in an industry dominated by men. (The other one was her competitor Madhuri Dixit.) In Nagina, she played a shape-shifting snake, who could take on human form, bent on avenging her husband’s death. In Mr. India, directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth), she played a journalist who happens to be the tenant of a man with the power to become invisible.
Instead, English Vinglish’s simple story allows for Sridevi to subtly showcase her many talents — her ability for drama and her brilliant knack for comic timing. The only thing missing is the big Bollywood dance spectacle she was famous for.
It’s the sign of a new era of female-centric Bollywood films.
“It’s really good to see the heroine not just doing some few scenes and running around the trees,” said Sridevi. “I hope and pray it continues.”