With Amar Singh Chamkila, Parineeti Chopra is back and how

2013 brought Shuddh Desi Romance. And two-film-old Parineeti played the role of the independent, pragmatic, in-love-but-petrified-of-marriage small-town girl, Gayatri, to the T. Not afraid to kiss a man she had met only a few hours ago, not one to hide her past escapades, and not batting an eyelid at the idea of moving in with someone for no other reason than the fact that she was uncontrollably attracted to him: Parineeti convinced us she was Gayatri.

Also Read | Amar Singh Chamkila movie review: Diljit Dosanjh brings a shining sincerity to this moving portrait of an artiste who was both reviled, revered

The world, or at least the one connected with the Hindi film industry, was forced to sit up and take notice. An overwhelming number of guests at the elite Koffee with Karan picked Parineeti when asked about the newcomer they preferred. Alia Bhatt was only one film old and Student of The Year didn’t exactly do her favours as an actor.

In 2014, a few months before the new government at the Centre, came Hasee Toh Phasee, which saw Parineeti playing a quirky but gifted scientist, who is not afraid to steal money from her own house to fund a project, or nick her sister’s fiancé because she can’t help it. “Aur koi option nahi hai, bhaag jaate hain,” she plainly suggests to him. The fiancé was played by Siddharth Malhotra, perhaps the “national crush” of that time, but it was Parineeti who had me smiling to myself the whole day, and who brought me back to the theatre again the very next week to watch the same film and smile some more. I had found my “girl crush” and could not wait to see what the girl with the unmissable mole on the side of her nose had to offer next.

Parineeti Chopra in Hasee Toh Phasee.

The wait lasted one whole decade.

The next offering was Dawat-e-Ishq, which though had its heart in the right place, was a “depressingly bland” dud by all accounts. Kill Dil, the same year, “began badly, plodded away the way it began, and ended worse”, doing no favours to Parineeti or her career.

Parineeti Chopra, for all practical purposes, vanished from the screen. Off screen, she began losing weight and sort of made that her whole persona. Who can forget the misleading: “Built that way” campaign? Her effervescent, no-holds-barred media interactions made way for a more sombre Pari (as she is fondly called) who spoke little and only when needed. Where did Parineeti, full of talent and spontaneity go?

Alia Bhatt, meanwhile, shocked everyone with her stellar performance in Imtiaz Ali’s Highway (2014) and went on to become one of the biggest female superstars of her time.

It took Parineeti three years to come back as Meri Pyari Bindu (2017): Bollywood’s answer to the manic pixie dream girl trope, already done to death by Hollywood. Pari was cute and sweet, even hot, but that abandon was missing.

The years that followed had Parineeti playing just one of the characters in multi-starrers (Golmaal Again), an able partner to the hero (Kesari), or the lead girl in just badly made films (Girl on the Train).

The only bright spark was the 2021 release Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar, which saw her playing a top bank official with a secret. Parineeti was herself again, but only for this while, swiftly going back to releasing films doing no justice to her talent and effortless charms (read Saina, Uunchai, Mission Raniganj).

 

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Outside films, she made news for her unlikely choice of life partner: A first-generation politician from the Opposition. It looked like she had gained a little weight too, but maybe it was love?

The mystery was solved as she shared that she was playing Amarjot, the wife and singing partner of the Elvis of Punjab, Amar Singh Chamkila. But as the film released earlier this month, one realised that Amarjot was not just any other trophy wife, and Parineeti, not just any other arm candy to the hero.

From the first scene, as she steps out of the backseat of a car, a paperback in hand, seconds before being shot, she made me feel like I was looking at Amarjot – the character, not Parineeti — the actor. Puffy cheeks, high bun, loose-fitted suits with a mismatched dupatta firmly covering the chest, she became Amarjot, the way she had become Dimple, Zoya, Gayatri, and Meeta all those years ago.

Also Read | Amar Singh Chamkila’s last day: Singer foreshadowed his own death, saw his wife being shot and asked, ‘Babbi, tenu ki hoya’

The role was short and challenging, not least because it was alongside Diljit Dosanjh. It is difficult to look anywhere else when he is on the screen, right? And here he is playing the lead in a biopic, barely any chance for anyone else to shine. But Parineeti, like a beam making its way through an aperture, sparkled. She sang, fell in love, fought, sang again, died, and left one asking for more. She didn’t seem to care that she looked fat or not conventionally pretty as she hungrily grabbed the one opportunity befitting her talent that came her way after years. This was clearly her best in the last decade, and who better than Ali to bring that out of her! The person who made us realise first that Alia Bhatt can act, also reminded us that Parineeti, too, has not gone anywhere.

 

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A day after the release, evidently overwhelmed by the response, Parineeti wrote an Instagram post, encapsulating the sum and summary of the audience response to her in the film: ‘Parineeti is back’. You bet she is.