Bollywood, Growing Up And Getting Real

Bollywood steps into biopic season with an ever-evolving audience’s blessings

- Suhani Singh

Two of 2016’s biggest hits, Airlift and Neerja, had one thing in common: they were based on true events. For his biopic on the fearless flight attendant Neerja Bhanot, director Ram Madhvani was certain that he didn’t want the 250 passengers on the Panam flight to be seen as mere extras. “They are not my background, but my foreground. That’s where the eye will go,” said Madhvani. “I have no shallow focus as a human being.” So, his casting director Kanika Berry tested over a thousand actors to get the most compelling faces to reflect panic. His associate director Vinod Rawat held workshops and even assigned backstories to a few of the passengers. To bring out germane performances, the passengers were made to board the plane, built in Borivali, a suburb in Mumbai, with passports and tickets. On the first few days of shooting, Madhvani invited Boman Irani on the set to encourage the cast. “There are no small parts, only small actors,” said Irani. Once in the plane, set designer Aparna Sud ensured everything was functional, from the bathroom and intercom to the drinking water machine. “This is not a set,” said Madhvani, “this is the real thing. If it is not, you can’t feel it.”

Adhering to the tiniest of details is one of the many reasons why Neerja,made on a budget of Rs 21 crore including publicity and advertising, co over Rs 75 crore at the box off ran for over a month in cinema success of Neerja and Raja K Menon’s Airlift, which centred evacuation of over a lakh Indian Kuwait during Iraq’s invasion still the only 2016 release to cr Rs 100-crore mark, is proof that reality not only bites, it also sells.