Shah Rukh Khan has had a pretty long career, that has mostly included him being at the top of box-office charts and consistently remaining the most bankable star of an entire generation.
And although he’s been associated with plenty of classic Bollywood romances, the one singular movie that stands out the most in his illustrious career is – Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Swades.
Interestingly, this isn’t a movie – that contributed to solidifying his star-power or his box-office appeal, which was apparently what gave him the title – ‘King of Bollywood.’
A mild success at the ticket counter, the film is mostly remembered for it’s timeless message and SRK’s most down-to-earth and relatable character, ever.
While majority of movies the actor has starred-in has featured him in some sort of a ‘romantic hero’avatar’, Swades, even in all it’s glory, is a story about a common man falling in love with his roots, once again.
Here are 5 things about the film that make it SRK’s career best:
1) The story
The resounding story about an NRI, coming back to India to rediscover all that he had left behind and getting emotionally involved in the troubled lives of ‘his people’, makes for a heart-warming backdrop to the story. Ashutosh Gowarikar’s fantastic direction, helps it maintain a balance between ‘artsy’ and ‘flamboyant.’ It is real, yet does not loose it’s heart like many “realistic” flicks on rural India, that we’ve seen before.
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2) The performances
Everyone in the movie’s entire cast delivered a moving, memorable performance. The many small characters curated in the village of ‘Charan Pur’, stay etched in your memory long after you’ve watched it. You will certainly not forget the names – Kaveri Amma and Mohan Bhargav, among many others, after viewing this masterpiece.
3) The realistic relatable character
Shah Rukh took a major break from the Farah Khan and Karan Johar romantic potboilers, by taking-on the lead role of this subtly-told, yet incredibly moving tale of a common man. He’s not wearing Manish Malhotra outfits, like the actor’s previous character and he isn’t delivering romantic one-liners to his “heroines” like a ‘Raj’ or a ‘Rahul’. Mohan Bhargav is real and relatable.
4) The Heart
Despite being reasonably realistic, the movie isn’t gritty and raw in lines of something you’d expect from an Anurag Kashyap or a Debakar Banerjee drama. Gowarikar has his own charm, as he amalgamates these ‘real’ scenarios of rural India with a touch of heart and soul of Hindi cinema’s mainstream. Yet, it isn’t exactly out and out ‘Bollywood.’ There are plenty of heart-rendering scenes in this film, which manage to move you no matter how many times you view it.
5) The music
One of the most important things that help make this movie as stunning as it seems, is the background score and soundtrack given by A.R. Rahman. From SRK’s entry into the village to his mischievous acts of flirtation with Geeta (played by Gayatri Joshi), the background score not only sums-up the minds of it’s characters, but also takes the emotional quotient of the film to a whole new level.
Swades just serves as the perfect mix of art-cinema and ‘Bollywood musicals’, and comes out as an unforgettable movie experience.
It’s been nearly 2 decades since it’s release, yet it remains SRK’s best film to date – no doubt.