umrao jaan movie reviews

Language: HINDI
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: J P Dutta
Producer: J P Films
Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Sunil Shetty, Puru Rajkumar, Divya Dutta, Himani Shivpuri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Ayesha Jhulka, Bikram Saluja
Music: Anu Malik
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Cinematography: A. Bose
Screenplay: J. P. Dutta
Story/Writer: J. P. Dutta
Art Direction: Bijon Dasgupta
A gorgeous nineteenth-century period drama, Muzaffar Ali's Umrao Jaan is a the story of a young girl kidnapped from her home and sold to a woman in Lucknow to be trained as a tawayaf, a courtesan or "public woman." Allowed an education in literature, music, and dance that would have been denied to her at home, she becomes a highly sought-after entertainer as well as the object of affection of a local princeling. Thwarted romances and a desire for freedom eventually lead her back to her home village, but will Umrao be able to return to her rural village after so many years in a scandalous profession? In many ways a feminist tragedy, the melodrama is tempered with stirring performances of ghazals, poem sung in Urdu, and a sumptuous attention to detail in settings and costume. In Urdu with English subtitles.