Rani Mukerji: I choose films where the woman is pivotal to the plot, projected with dignity and power

Rani Mukerji also claimed that gender has no role in a film's success.

Rani Mukerji (Courtesy: Yash Raj Films Talent/Instagram)

Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway has been a huge success in the two weeks since it was released on Netflix, and it has remained one of the service's top 10 films in India. It's a confirmation of the Rani Mukerji film's financial success. One of the few Bollywood hits of the year so far, the March movie was claimed to have been made on a minimal budget yet nevertheless managed to earn Rs 37 crore. The actor is pleased that she has disproved a common belief in the Hindi cinema industry, namely, that a film must gross at least Rs 100 million to be considered successful.

Some people have the wrong idea about what it means to score a hit. If the studio makes money, then the film is successful. The actor stresses that one must consider more than just the film's box office earnings when evaluating its success.

Pathaan was a huge hit in 2023, while Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway and The Kerala Story were also successful. The successful run of Ashima Chibber's directorial debut silenced naysayers who questioned the viability of female-led films in the wake of the pandemic.

Rani further said that there is an ongoing debate about whether women-centric films are box-office attractions; naturally, they are. A movie's box-office performance has nothing to do with the gender of its lead actors.

Taking inspiration from her own experience, Sagarika Chakraborty plays a feisty mother who takes on the Norwegian judicial system after the welfare services remove her children from her care on the grounds of parental neglect in the film Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway. The drama was in line with Rani's goal of showcasing strong female protagonists.

She knows that as an actor, her ideas about the film will change over time, but one thing that won't change is her commitment to positive portrayals of women in film. Rani prefers films in which a strong female character plays a central role and is shown in a positive light. Independent, strong, and compassionate, women have always been the driving force behind positive social change in her eyes. To emphasise these qualities, she specifically cast actors who share her values in films like Yuva (2004), Black (2005), No One Killed Jessica (2011), Mardaani (2015), and Hichki (2018).

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