'Begum Jaan': It's no 'Mandi', but an experience

Balan fakes it from the word go. From the hookah that she insists on snorting to her periodic outbursts of anger and laughter, it's all a 'come-watch-me-do-a-National-Award' act. Her diction, a delight in other circumstances, is here an embarrassing reminder of Vidya's urbane personality being superimposed on a character who survives by her intuitive cunningness. In a sequence like the one where she slaps a stuporous rape victim (Mishti, Subhash Ghai's heroine in "Kaanchi") into a state of emotional eruption, Vidya is so keen to impress us with her range that she behaves like a singer who has newly learnt the ragas and wants to squeeze them all into one song.