Birthday Special: Which is Deepika Padukone's most underrated film?

From Break Ke Baad to Finding Fanny to Tamasha, Deepika Padukone has made some very different choices that needed more time and attention.

The nation first saw her in Himesh Reshammiya's music video, Naam Hai Tera, all the way back in 2006. That was the time she was a year away from her big Bollywood debut in the form of Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om opposite Shah Rukh Khan. We don't need to give you any further hints, the subject de jure is Deepika Padukone, who turns 34 today.

Today, when we talk about Padukone, we talk about the aforementioned reincarnation drama that consolidated her clout in the industry, we talk about her collaborators with the master and the maverick filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and her major debut in Hollywood with xXx: Return of Xander Cage.

However, we need to talk about the films and the performances that didn't strike a connect with the audience when they saw them for the first time, these were the films that needed attention and patience, and they had in them to engulf you in their spirited world if we gave them those opportunities. As much as we talk about Bajirao Mastani, Piku, Om Shanti Om, and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, we need to reflect upon these films as well:

1. Kartik Calling Kartik (2010)

This was a psychological thriller where the central character was schizophrenic. He was under the belief he's getting a call from someone who has his voice and knows everything about him. Padukone was his colleague and his love interest. As the story progressed, she too became a part of the hero's rise and the expected fall. It may be remembered for Farhan Akhtar, but Padukone too showed her knack for picking stories that didn't really border on the cliches.

2. Break Ke Baad (2010)

Akin to Love Aaj Kal, this was a love story that highlighted a couple's life after they break up, or give some time to their own lives. For the first and perhaps the only time in her career, she played a character who was afraid of commitment. She was spontaneous and spirited in her role as Aaliya, but maybe after her above-mentioned film and Imran Khan's own I Hate Luv Storys, not many were keen to witness another tale about couple complications.

3. Finding Fanny (2014)

Padukone wasn't really a part of the central theme of this oddball film brimming with oddball characters. It was the tale of an idiosyncratic and ageing man who embarked on a trip to find the love of his life. Padukone was one of the people to accompany him on his journey. In between, she discovers a love for herself and encounters some shocking and unexpected turn of events. Finding Fanny was an audacious move from an actress who was riding on as many as five consecutive blockbusters behind her.

4. Tamasha (2015)

There has to be something about Imtiaz Ali's cinema. It's unintentional or intentional but it always gets polarising reactions, the response oscillates between love and loathe, there's nothing in between. Tamasha was one such film. It had to fail, for the simple reason Ali refused to tell the same love story this time. It even had the tag line- Why always the same love story?

Padukone played Tara, who falls in love with Ved while on a trip to Corsica. She meets him in Delhi four years later but he's not the one she met. Tamasha didn't replicate the fluffy romance of the couple's previous blockbuster Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, it echoed the sentimentalities of Udaan and 3 idiots. It was a film that asked all of us to follow our hearts.

There's something about the actress that in almost all her failures, she's always a character that becomes the hero's force and shining armour. Fans were expecting a frothy romance, what they got was a coming-of-age drama about a man battling his inner and outer demons. Today, Tamasha is one of her most revered and remembered films to date. Wish this love was showered on it when it came out!

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