Here’s Why Aishwarya Rai Should Reconsider Her ‘Comeback’

For someone who’s been the pinnacle of Indian cinematic diaspora at international platforms on more occasions than one, this isn’t the best of times to attempt conventional cinema as a lead. For someone who’s often caught the glaring eyes of paparazzi on Cannes Red Carpet as a sole Indian anchor, maybe the realms of contemporary cinema have changed. As much as we love Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with all our hearts, an honest Indian fan is wary of her much talked about ‘Comeback’. A forgetful comeback to say the least!!

Would you give an actress enough credit if the clothes she wore or the jewelry she put on did more talking than her performance? Guess not! Having made a comeback with Sanjay Gupta’s Jazbaa last year where she made a taut thriller look like a dramatic drag, Aishwarya deserved every bit of flak she recently got for her over the top performance in Sarbjit. All we are saying is, it’s better for her to maintain her legacy (whatever she’s earned) before she loses all out in the race of this fast paced competitive film industry.

Here’s why we feel Aishwarya should really really reconsider her comeback:

Untouched With The Contemporary Style of Cinema

Aishwarya started off with her comeback from exactly where she left a few years back without realizing how rapidly the norms of cinema have changed. Late 2000’s was where melodrama with ‘glycerine filled eyes’ and ‘red cheeks’ was okay with the audience to take as performance, not anymore though. Aishwarya somehow seems to have been stuck in the same zone. The times when we as audiences were being made to sit through stuff like Dhai Akshar Prem Ke and Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahi is what Aishwarya takes us back to with her performances today.

Loud Expressions/Haywire Performances

From undoing everybody’s contributive effort in Sarbjit to making a thriller like Jazbaa look an overdramatized flow of narration, it’s only humble to admit the fact that Aishwarya is nowhere on the performance quotient as far as acting is concerned. An out of place Dalbir Kaur was enough to signpost that it’s going to ask for some major taking for her to survive. It’s only better for her to realize this before the top brass of filmmakers/producers do.

Misfit in All Proportions

The problem with Aishwarya’s largely laid Bollywood prospects is that there’s too little space for her to shed out anything. She doesn’t have a method angle laced along to keep her afloat in all regions of mainstream cinema. She isn’t a Hindi heartland bringer like a Kangana or a Richa Chadda to make way for the kind of cinema people are enjoying these days. And neither does she have that range of carrying off characters that Rekha, Tabu or a Madhuri have perhaps put their feet in. She is one actress who got through first half of her career with a tag of being a Miss World and the later-half with the title of being the beauty India can boast of.

Baggage of the Beauty

If Aishwarya with all her hard work in so many years could once be called an actress above a beauty, maybe the argument of her survival wouldn’t have surfaced at all. But it is what it is! The beauty (as charming as it is) has somehow over powered everything else that she’s done in her life. In a career that stretches over a 20 years, Aishwarya ‘the Hindi film industry performer’ could never surface. Even if she tries experimenting with a performance like Sarbjit, the audience is found making more sense under the make-up laden lady who’s trying to be a performer like everybody else. The down side is, the big baggage of Aishwarya’s beauty is not going to fade out in years to follow!

Her Past Doesn’t Warrant Any Reassurance Either

Three of her best works to date in a career that obviously should have offered more has come under two filmmakers. While she had a strong support of Salman Khan and Ajay Devgn in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, she for the very first time could assert she knew acting in Bhansali’s Devdas. Nothing substantial or significant hits you when you try and jog your memory a little more. Guru or Raavan perhaps? Even if she could cite her past accomplishments to her defense to assert her performance as an actor, she can’t. This in a way is enough to further validate the point we are making about her acting.

Here’s a random thought! While at no point of junction, do we want to draw any comparisons, but we also have a Priyanka Chopra in the fray! She is as much a beauty pageant winner as Aishwarya is but what do we keep her in mind for? A Barfi, A Saat Khoon Maaf or even a Fashion! Besides being put up as a global rockstar who had the style of international singing, she is the protagonist of an American TV series and will soon be seen in a popular Hollywood flick along with big names. Why could Aishwarya not pull off a similar progression with her little stint in Hollywood?

As much as we feel proud for having someone like an Aishwarya Rai Bachchan holding the flag high at so many stages for our industry, we can’t be ignorant of all her shortcomings.

Aishwarya is a beauty, she is a star, she is elegant, she is what no other Indian Miss World/Universe could ever be and yet, she is everything an actor isn’t!