Gangubai Kathiawadi movie review: Alia Bhatt is luminous as Bhansali’s narrative rises, shines, dips, sinks and rises again

Language: Hindi

By any yardstick, the life of an Indian sex worker who lobbied for the legalisation of sex work over half a century back is worth a film. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi tells us his heroine did this and more in her battle for women’s rights in a red light area as far back as the 1960s. 

The film is based on Gangubai’s life as it is documented in journalist S. Hussain Zaidi’s book Mafia Queens of Mumbai. Beyond the costumery, the grand choreography and sets so typical of a Bhansali production, this woman’s overt feminism is what sets Gangubai Kathiawadi apart from the rest of the writer-director’s filmography and from the zillions of stories of courtesans, madams and pimps narrated by Hindi cinema from its inception.

Logic suggests that Bhansali is giving us a rose-tinted view of Gangu, since he does little to throw light on how she sustained her business for long if she was actually, as this film variously says and suggests she did, allowing the women under her care to leave whenever they wished, she tried to help keep their daughters out of sex work, she dispensed with pimps in her brothel, and after taking over, she opposed the forced entry of newcomers into the profession. With all these idealistic decisions, how did she still continue her work on the principle – as she puts it in the context of another trade – of beimaani ke kaam mein imaandaari (honesty in dishonest work)? 

Alia Bhatt in a still from Gangubai Kathiawadi

Such sanitisation is ironic, of course, since Gangubai Kathiawadi is a call for acceptance and an end to the hypocrisy of a society that patronises sex work yet derides it, but the film itself seems unwilling to dig deep and reveal truths that may not necessarily have supported this unblemished picture of Gangu and/or would have called for nuanced writing. 

Be that as it may, Gangubai Kathiawadi has enough heft to keep it going, with Alia Bhatt’s luminous presence and felt performance holding it up even when Bhansali succumbs to his life-long temptation to pat, primp and pretty up even the grubbiest settings in his films. 

Rating: 2.75 (out of 5 stars) 

(A long version of this review will be up shortly)

Gangubai Kathiawadi is now in theatres

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial