Happy Birthday Rani Mukerji: 6 best performances of the queen of hearts

By Subhash K. Jha -

March 21, 2024 - 1:13 PM IST

Rani Mukerji’s name is synonymous with excellence. Though she did a lot of trashy films in her time, she is somehow remembered for her classic performances in films that are etched permanently in our minds. Here is ferreting out Rani’s 6 best on her 46^th birthday.

Happy Birthday Rani Mukerji: 6 best performances of the queen of hearts

1. Saathiya (2002):

The act of falling in love in a Hindi film is more often than not a mere ruse to put up a show of exotic locations, designer clothes, flashy cars and opulent homes. Shaad Ali's directorial debut, a remake of Mani Ratnam's Tamil hit Alai Payuthey, is a love story all right, but it's a film about real people leading real lives. Aditya Sehgal (Vivek Oberoi) falls in love with Suhani Sharma (Rani Mukherjee). But it's not a typical teenyboppers' love affair. It is fraught as much with youthful ardour as nagging doubt. It begins as an infatuation and then blossoms into full-blown ardour. Complications arise because of misunderstandings between the two sets of parents and the young lovers are compelled to elope. As marital responsibilities grow, their relationship faces severe strain. It takes a near-tragedy for the couple to rediscover the real core of their love for each other. Both Vivek Oberoi and Rani Mukherjee are brilliant, etching out believable, well-rounded characters. But Rani was a bit more compelling in her excellence. She breathed life into Suhani.

2. Black (2005):

Rani Mukherjee’s career-best performance. With Black, Hindi cinema turned a corner, veering passionately away from the norm, creating an entirely new definition of entertainment and giving us a work of art that transcends every given qualification of the motion-picture experience. Sanjay Leela Bhansali created a work that freezes all superlatives. Black unleashes a fury of never-felt emotions. Master-creator that he is, Bhansali peels away layers and layers of passionate pain. The characters stand stark naked on camera, their souls exposed for us to see. We can't turn away. Bhansali doesn't give us that choice. We first enter little Rani’s Michelle's pitch-black world with Debraj (Amitabh Bachchan). The relationship that grows between the impossibly difficult little girl (debutante Ayesha Kapoor, playing Rani as a child) and the equally difficult teacher is underscored by an immense and acute irony. As Debraj makes Michelle 'see' into the light through her blindness, he goes blind and finally loses his mind. In the best most heart-wrenching moments of the film, Michelle rattles the chains that are put on her guru to prevent him from causing himself bodily harm. That frenzied chain rattling becomes symbolic of everything that Bhansali's incredibly grand cinema attempts to do. The darkest, most inexpressible thoughts acquire shape in Bhansali's tortured and yet incredibly beautiful realm of self-expression. As the narrative follows Michelle's progression from darkness to light, we move along in a choked and suffocated numbness, as though life in all its darkest shades had suddenly opened up in front of our eyes.

3. Saawariya (2007):

In Saawariya, the focus was on the debutant lead pair Sonam Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor. But it was Rani who stole show as the buoyant whore. The director Sanjay Leela Bhansali told me that the role was inspired by Aruna Irani in Raj Kapoor’s Bobby. Saawariya is Sanjay Leela Bhansali's most tender ode to love yet. Taking Fyodor Dostoevsky's minuscule play White Nights, Bhansali built huge but unimposing emotions classified by dollops of awe-inspiring studio-erected architecture that represents feelings rather than physical forms. The film's consciously created staginess is its biggest virtue. It lends an otherworldly quality to the frames. The wispy characters may or may not exist outside the prostitute-narrator Rani Mukerji's playful mind. Maybe she's making up this beautiful tale of one-sided love and perhaps the boy-man she took under her wings is just a figment of her imagination.

4. Hichki (2018):

By the time Rani did this film, she was Mrs Aditya Chopra. The imperious real-life role spills into her on-screen persona which is at once persuasive and effortless. The plot derives its creative juices from a real-life British teacher who suffered from the Tourette Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes painful verbal dysfunction in the sufferer. It’s astonishing how Rani takes over the sufferer’s role without allowing the disease to impede her character’s ingrained sunniness of countenance. When faced with a classroom filled with contumacious students from the slums (played by young actors who frequently act with representational emphasis) Rani’s Naina never falters, and never minds her tongue. It’s only when she is with her estranged father (Sachin Pilgoankar) that she loses her cool. Rani’s Naina’ two dining-table sequences with her screen-father are marvels of screenwriting drama, packaged and performed in pitch-perfect harmony. When the father’s patronizing sympathy gets too much Rani marches off to the kitchen to make rotis, venting her need to exhale in the kneading. Rani Mukerjee makes her Tourette-informed character unwavering in her upbeat-ness and yet no giddy-headed breathless optimist. The pain comes gushing out in a sequence where she pounds and pummels her uncontrollable mouth almost as though she were sparring with her destiny. I wish there were more Naina Mathurs in this world who can teach all of us a thing or two about being human without making humanism a logo on a T shirt. I think Rani’s performance in this film deserved a lot more laurels than it got.

5. Mardaani 1 & 2 (2014 and 2019):

Rani’s cop Shivani is a mixture of the feminine and the mardaani. Displaying exemplary economy of expression, the narrative puts forward Shivani’s very articulate attitude to home and profession through brief but lucid encounters with various characters. In the sequel, somewhere during the nail-biting narration, the vile villain begins to seem a far more interesting character than our cop-heroine Shivani Roy, whom we met five years ago in the first Mardaani film. Back then, Rani Mukherjee appeared far more fiery and passionate. Maybe it’s just age that has caught up with Shivani. Or worse, maybe she has become bored with all the crime corruption and compromises around her. But back then in 2015, she seemed to care much more when a street girl disappeared and was tracked down to a flesh trader. Maybe Rani was trying to do something different with her role in the sequel. Except for her final goose-bumpy breakdown sequence where her tears roll with the end-credits, Rani’s Shivani Roy shows no overt emotions. Maybe the tears had dried up. But the creative juices of the actress are far from exhausted.

6. Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway:

Rani Mukerji’s sinewy muscular performance as a hyper Bengali mother battling the government of Norway for the right to her own children is tour de force. Luckily Ashima Chibber in her sophomore film, doesn’t fall prey to the stereotypes of the distressed-mother genre. Rani Mukerji makes sure of that. She brings an implosive emotional velocity to her character. We know straightaway that this woman won’t let her children go, not without a ferocious battle. And not even after that. The film has a deceptively gleaming surface suggesting a well-ordered NRI’s affluence. Rani plays the messy hyper housewife with such vigour we completely read into her maternal intensity. When life deals you such a low blow, it is impossible to abide by ideas of civil conduct. Rani gets it. So do we. She is in marvellous form here, channelling the mother within herself to manifest the screen mother’s trauma.

Also Read: Rani Mukerji cuts cake with paparazzi ahead of 46th birthday