Saina

SAINA is the story of the making of a legendary badminton player. Saina Nehwal (Parineeti Chopra) is a young girl who has just shifted from Hisar, Haryana to Hyderabad. Her mother Usha Rani (Meghna Malik) has been a district level badminton player in Haryana and she sees the same streak in Saina, who is her younger daughter. She decides to enroll her for badminton training.

All of us know about Saina Nehwal but do you know about her struggles? Who and what helped her reach where she is right now? What did she leave to achieve her dream? What were the hurdles in her way, her mistakes and what decisions helped her achieve her goals? Saina Nehwal's Biopic starring Parineeti Chopra is a story all about that.

Is it possible for Bollywood makers to deviate from the often chosen path while telling an inspirational story of rags to riches? Biopics have simple and unbroken rules of following the template that has been set by multiple real-life stories before. Some have been dumbed down, some have been remarkably real. Amole Gupte's Saina tilts slightly towards the former, and the filmmaker puts the dumbing down to good use.

Saina Nehwal does not have a flamboyant public persona. What she does have are unprecedented sporting achievements and a life featuring the sort of drama that is inevitable for one so successful. Director Amole Gupte's eponymous biopic stars Parineeti Chopra as the former badminton world No. 1. The film gets a lot right, but hesitates over other elements, leaving several questions in its wake.

Amole Gupte's directorial comeback, Saina, has been in the making for almost five years. So expectations are high from this Parineeti Chopra starrer. Based on badminton ace Saina Nehwal's life, this biopic revolves around how she became World Number 1 in the sport. Will her personal life overpower her professional life? Will she strike a balance between the two?

Think of badminton and what image comes into the minds of an average Indian who is a sports enthusiast. Saina Nehwal - the former world no. 1, who has over 24 international titles that includes eleven Super series titles to her credit. The only female player from India to achieve this feat.

Champions are not born overnight. They are made. Saina Nehwal, daughter of Usha and Harvir Singh Nehwal, a Haryanvi couple from Hyderabad created history in 2015 when she became the first Indian woman and only the second Indian after Prakash Padukone to attain the world No.1 ranking in Badminton.

In Amole Gupte's Saina Nehwal biopic, it's expectedly all about badminton. The sport features in nearly all the scenes of the cradle-to-the-present portrait. It begins even before Saina has appeared on the planet. Her mother Usha Rani is a district-level player, and her father Harvir has wielded the racquet too.

The eventful life and times of Indian badminton ace Saina Nehwal abounds in intrinsic drama no doubt. Amole Gupte's Saina, which brings her exciting story to the big screen, suffers from a lack of consistency. The sports biopic floats like a wobbly shuttlecock between trying to get the big smashes in and opting for a defensive strategy aimed at eking out a hard-fought win. That it falls between two stools isn't the principal problem; the ungainly thud with which it does so is.