SHAKUNTALA DEVI is the story of a mathematical genius and her complicated relationship with her daughter. Shakuntala Devi (Araina Nand) is 5 years old and lives in Bangalore with her family. Her brother Srinivas (Ahan Nirbhan) discovers that she can solve complicated maths problems easily. Shakuntala's father (Prakash Belawadi) realizes that he can do maths shows with her to enthral audiences and thereby earn money. He starts doing so, depriving Shakuntala of a formal education in school. He justifies it by reasoning that she is too intelligent and sharp for schooling. Shakuntala agrees but begins to hate her father for his selfish agenda. She also gets irritated with her mother (Ipshita Chakraborty Singh) for not standing up against her father. Shakuntala's closest family member is her paraplegic sister Sharada (Jiya Singh). Sharada passes away one day because of lack of medical care. Her father argues that he didn't have enough money to take her to the doctor. This enrages Shakuntala. Two decades later, Shakuntala (Vidya Balan) moves to London, hoping that she can use her talent to make money. After initial rejections, she finally gets a chance to do her own shows thanks to Javier (Luca Calvani), a member of a mathematical society. He also fine-tunes her English and makes her presentable. In no time, Shakuntala becomes renowned and she is able to buy her own house in the English capital. This is when Javier decides to leave her as he believes that she doesn't need him anymore. A year later, she meets a divorced IAS official Paritosh Banerji (Jisshu Sengupta) in Bombay and they fall in love. They get married and soon have a daughter, Anupama (Sanya Malhotra). At first, Shakuntala gives up on her work and becomes a full-time mother. Soon, she begins to miss doing shows and travelling around the world. Paritosh encourages her to follow her dreams and assures that he'll take care of Anupama. Shakuntala begins her tours once again. All is going well until one day, Shakuntala learns that Anupama's first word is Daddy'. Shakuntala realizes that she shouldn't be away from her daughter. Hence, she decides to take Anupama with her on her tours. Paritosh protests but she doesn't listen. Anupama starts living like a nomad with Shakuntala and begins to miss her father and a normal routine life. Shakuntala, however, encourages her to enjoy the life she's living and she even uses Anupama for her work purposes. Slowly and gradually, Anupama begins to despise Shakuntala just the way Shakuntala had begun to abhor her own mother. What happens next forms the rest of the film.
Anu Menon's direction is praiseworthy. She keeps the duration in check at 2.07 hours and tries to pack in as much of her life as possible in a neat and concise manner. She adds a lot of entertainment and drama to many proceedings to keep the interest going. And most importantly, she doesn't make a hagiography. Biopics in Bollywood usually treat their characters with unnecessary reverence. SHAKUNTALA DEVI is a rare biopic that doesn't do so and highlights her flaws as well. On the flipside, the narrative is complicated. There's a lot of back-and-forth happening as the film jumps across timelines. A few developments are too quick and some tracks don't reach a logical conclusion. For instance, Paritosh's character is forgotten completely in the last 30 minutes.
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