Recently, when Ranbir Kapoor was doing the promotional rounds for Sanju, he told a reporter, “Sanjay Dutt’s life can be made into a Netflix show and it can run for 10 seasons.” He’s right. Sanjay Dutt’s almost Biblical life is mired with so much turmoil that it could easily translate into a bingeable digital show on par with the best out there (ex: The Leftovers, Transparent).
But rather than zero in on one or two chapters of his life (as most biopics do), Rajkumar Hirani, India’s most celebrated living filmmaker, takes on the Herculean task of compressing Dutt’s thirty year journey to redemption and turning it into pure masala escapism.
Because he’s Rajkumar Hirani, he largely succeeds on that front.
Characteristic of his earlier work, Hirani artfully weds shades of light and dark, pathos with humor and a dreamlike, technicolor exterior with grim subjects like drug addiction and terrorism. Hirani does this knowing full well that the general Indian audience craves doses of reality in their cinematic experience but that they also need a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.
“Ranbir anchors the film’s pandemonium with a performance that’s so nuanced and exceptional, we’ll be discussing it for years to come.”
That being said, audiences who think the film is just about Sanjay Dutt are in for a surprise. Even though Sanju is marketed as just a biopic, Hirani can’t help to but inject it with his signature insightful commentary on the topic du jour of India. In Munna Bhai, Hirani spoke out about India’s deteriorating medical institutions while in 3 Idiots and PK, he spoke out about rote learning and religious segregation respectively. This time, he focuses on “fake news” and its erosion of modern society.
The timing couldn’t be more right. Sanju arrives at the heels of both the Cobrapost media exposé and a scandal that not only shook India but the world at large – the barbaric lynching of innocent men in Karbi Anglong, Assam who were accused of kidnapping children after a fake news story leaked and spread on WhatsApp.
Personally, this is what I took away from the rosy portrayal of the controversial Bollywood superstar and this is what I think audiences, who also take issue with Hirani whitewashing Dutt’s life, should take away from the film.
That and that the film is undeniably entertaining. It provokes thought, makes you laugh out loud and pulls on your heartstrings all in equal measure. Hirani might refuse to give Dutt a sense of agency over his poor life decisions but he also strongly reminds us that monsters aren’t born, they’re created.
Finally, there’s Ranbir Kapoor.
Kapoor anchors the film’s pandemonium with a performance that’s so nuanced and exceptional, we’ll be discussing it for years to come.
