{"id":21185,"date":"2020-07-31T03:30:51","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T18:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2020\/jul\/30\/shakuntala-devi-review-mathematical-maths-genius-biopic-anu-menon"},"modified":"2020-07-31T03:30:51","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T18:30:51","slug":"shakuntala-devi-review-spirited-biopic-of-a-mathematical-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=21185","title":{"rendered":"Shakuntala Devi review \u2013 spirited biopic of a mathematical genius"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vidya Balan puts in a blazing performance as the eponymous Indian maths genius in Anu Menon\u2019s characterful feminist life story<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, the Hindi film mainstream has become more proactive about telling the stories of notable women. This new one follows on the heels of last October\u2019s crowdpleasing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2019\/oct\/24\/saand-ki-aankh-review-women-sharpshooters-pannu-pednekar\">Saand Ki Aankh<\/a>, which centred on sharpshooting sisters-in-law, but explores with far greater force its subject\u2019s idiosyncrasies. What results is a biopic with genuine character.<\/p>\n<p>The feats described here are mental: the eponymous heroine, Shakuntala Devi (Vidya Balan), was a phenomenal, Guinness World Records-noted mathematician who performed for many decades in the 20th century under the stage name the Human Computer. Director Anu Menon approaches her, however, from the unusual angle of Devi\u2019s daughter, Anu (Sanya Malhotra), first seen marching into a London lawyers\u2019 chambers in 2001 to initiate criminal proceedings against mum for failing to provide for her. While the case is pending, the thoughtful script (by Menon, Nayanika Mahtani and Ishita Moitra) fills in the brainiac\u2019s backstory.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2020\/jul\/30\/shakuntala-devi-review-mathematical-maths-genius-biopic-anu-menon\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vidya Balan puts in a blazing performance as the eponymous Indian maths genius in Anu Menon\u2019s characterful feminist life storyIn recent years, the Hindi film mainstream has become more proactive about telling the stories of notable women. This new one &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1601,505,71,69,62,61,281,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biopics","category-bollywood","category-culture","category-film","category-india","category-south-and-central-asia","category-women","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21186,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21185\/revisions\/21186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}