Right from the time the trailer released, the PR agencies who handled Shakuntala Devi’s promotions cleverly drafted a note on her homosexual husband. Shakuntala Devi that streamed yesterday on Prime Video gave a lot of detailing in terms of look and her character but the shoddy writing let the film down. More so, people were curious to know if her husband was gay and if she caught him in the act, but the callousness with which it was dealt was just a prelude for more boredom that would follow.
Her confidence, brashness, selfishness is palpable but the entire episode surrounding her take on her husband and what inspired to write a book on homosexuality and her husband’s reaction, later on, was less of a revelation. Jisshu Sengupta behaves as if he is used to Shakuntala’s story making habits and he didn’t mind that at all.
“You have to make up stories that are personal so that readers could connect”, makes us feel that she was meant for a writer’s job in Bollywood.’ In the story, Shakuntala says, ‘we Indians are like that only, more drama or nothing at all’. Surely, we did know where the film was heading after that dialogue. The director, writer tried covering everything about the human-computer but every scene exhibited only triviality. Did performances salvage the film? Yes, to a large extent.
