Heroine in Hindi cinema

What makes the difference? If heroines can carry a film, then why don’t they ever anchor super-hits? My guess is that the answer has to do with class. The great votaries of woman-oriented cinema come from the middle-class. Not only are we willing to see movies that focus on women, we don’t care about songs, fights or love stories, as the success of Raj Kumar Gupta’s off-beat films demonstrates. A film like No One Killed Jessica may have no hero and no love story but it still engages the middle-class.

Unfortunately, this does not extend to rural India or to what used to be called the B-class and C-class centres in the old days. Those audiences still want most of the elements of a typical Hindi movie. Only when that changes will women-oriented pictures begin to crash the Rs 100 crore mark on a regular basis.

Still, things are changing. Madhur gave the example of Chandni Bar, which many people regard as one of his best films. The total budget for that picture was Rs 1.5 crore because nobody was willing to put more money into that kind of project. On the other hand, Heroine, which is Madhur’s latest release, has a budget of over Rs 20 crore. Kareena’s costumes alone cost Rs 2 crore or more than the entire budget of Chandni Bar.

FULL