When an Indian girl goes for honeymoon alone

A girl that usually went unnoticed in the crowd could not have bargained for what unfolds as she steps out for her honeymoon – alone.

That’s the story of Rani, the protagonist in the latest Bollywood movie Queen. The typical middle-class, conservative girl has her dreams shattered when her groom leaves her stranded at the altar.

Played by Kangana Ranaut, Rani decides to go on her honeymoon alone… since she had been planning her honeymoon while growing up. The girl who had never left her town alone now goes to Paris and Amsterdam on her own. What follows is a fun, quirky journey of Rani who discovers herself, while exploring the unknown.

The sheer innocence, vibrancy and abandon that Kangana reflects in her body language and expression are reflected full-throttle in the promos and trailers of Queen.

One of the highlights of Queen is Kangana Ranaut’s desi retro magic in the re-mixed Asha Bhonsle master-piece ‘Hungama’.

A drunk Kangana shows some ‘thumkas’ at a fancy pub in Amsterdam. Hungama, re-mixed with musical finesse by Amit Trivedi, serves amply to zest up proceedings in Queen.

Tipsy Kangana throws caution to the wind and grooves her way into the hearts of audiences with her hot jiggie-wiggies.

Director Vikas Bahl, attempts to re-establish her career after abysmal performance of his directorial debut movie.  “Chillar Party (his first film as a director) is forgotten. This is as good as a
debut,” says Vikas.

National-award winner Kangana Ranaut who has made glamorous roles in movies like fashion, seems to be an odd choice of this girl-next-door role. “Who said Rani is de-glam?” asks Vikas.

“It is a very pretty character. She is girl in a group of 10, whom we think gets unnoticed. Every girl has someone who finds her the most beautiful and eventually falls in love with her. This is the story of one such girl in a group of 10. And I think Kangana is pretty, she has her own sense of style. We might disagree with that. I don’t think there is anyone in this world
who feels they don’t have a style. So de-glam is not the right term for it,” reveals Bahl.

Explaining why he zeroed down his choice to Kangana, the director discloses, “We spent 15-20 days of discussing and then narrowed down on her. Kangana belongs to Himachal and she is familiar with those (pahadi) girls – their accent, dressing, body language etc. So it became easy for me. What Kangana has done is real and not caricature-like.”

While the movie centres around Kangana in the role of the protagonist Rani, there is another actress who acts as a catalyst in the transformation of the screen character. Lisa Haydon, model and actress who green-lighted her career with Aisha, enacts Vijaylakshmi in Queen.

“The character of Vijaylakshmi in Queen is that of a very free-spirited girl,” says Vikas. “I met Lisa and I found her to be such an interesting person, that I re-worked the character of Vijaylakshmi. I tweaked the character to suit Lisa.”

“I thought that Lisa was way more free-spirited than what I could conceive as a person. So I was willing to re-look at that character and do it in such a manner that Lisa would do an even better job
of it, than what I had conceived.”

The Kangana Ranaut-starrer is directed by Vikas Bahl, and produced by Viacom18 Motion Pictures, Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap. Queen, releases 7 March. Queen premiered at the Busan Film Festival in October 2013.