You can’t predict what surprise Alia Bhatt will sprung upon you next. At 26, Bhatt has already scored the dream—multiple box office hits and critical success, simultaneously.
She was also adjudged the winner in Best Actor (Female) category at News 18 Reel Movie Awards 2019 for her performance in Raazi.
Just years since her debut in the very mainstream ‘masala’ Karan Johar film Student Of The Year, and soon after Humpty Sharma ki Dulhaniya, Alia Bhatt is here and how! She’s got everything going for her. None of her films look the same, neither is she a less of a hero in any of them. And all they turn out to be major box office hits.
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As Sehmat in Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi, she was vulnerable, yet strong-willed. She broke multiple stereotypes with Raazi: She proved that she doesn’t need to be typecasted, that she can deliver hits single-handedly, and that the whole idea that the audience won’t watch women-led films is very flawed. Raazi went on to become her biggest solo hit and highest grosser of her career.
At the beginning, you would perhaps have thought—Alia Bhatt is yet another face in Bollywood. She could, in fact, have been yet another heroine as the camera followed the hero’s trajectory. She could be the one to dance around trees while the hero follows his dream. She chose not to.
She is the Bihari teenager who is forced into a harsh reality in Udta Punjab, she is the young woman who discovers herself after she is abducted in Highway, and in Dear Zindagi, she is a very realistic portrayal of a modern woman figuring out her way in life, albeit through heartbreaks and therapy sessions.
Straddling mainstream and independent cinema with equal ease is definitely not an easy task. But Alia Bhatt has mastered that art. She turned out to be Bollywood’s best defence to nepotism.
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In Raazi, a film that talks about patriotism without shoving it down the viewer's throat, Alia Bhatt is no Sunny Deol from Gadar, neither is she Aamir Khan from Rang De Basanti. Like the movie itself, Sehmat is subtle and yet a complex character. At the end, you are left with uncomfortable questions and you realise nationalism cannot be seen through a single lens.
Choosing the less taken path may not have been easy for Bhatt but she now represents a new generation of actors— self-assured, strong-willed, highly driven and not scared to experiment.
Besides Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, she has two more diverse releases this year: Abhishek Verman’s Kalank and Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra.
But comparing Alia Bhatt to leading Bollywood female actors isn’t easy either. Perhaps that’s why she is sometimes compared to the Khans, and sometimes to the new crop of young Bollywood actors, like Rajkummar Rao, Ayushmann Khurrana, and Vicky Kaushal.
Without any formal training in acting, Bhatt has admitted to being a self-taught actor. She believes her connection to the audience comes from her choice of films. But here’s the funny thing: Alia Bhatt is not doing what the audience wants her to do, she is telling them instead that Hindi cinema has finally come of age.
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