Bollywood mines hits out of women-centric films in 2014

In a year when money ruled the marquee with big stars opting for blockbusters, some remarkably content-driven women-centric movies made a big splash in Bollywood.
Unlike the over-hyped star-studded films tailor-made to pull more audience to theatres, these films balanced their 'masala' quotient with good content.
2014 saw over a dozen mainstream female-oriented films hitting the screen, perhaps the largest in the decade, making it a very encouraging period for women in Bollywood.
Filmmakers too did not shy away from giving their heroines author-backed, meaningful and unconventional roles in coming-of-age stories like 'Queen' 'Highway', 'Mary Kom' and 'Khoobsurat', which emerged winners.

The year started positively with Abhishek Chaubey's 'Dedh Ishqiya', a tale about two women and their wacky love-lorn suitors (Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi).
The January release had a decent run at the box-office, partly due to Madhuri Dixit's return to Bollywood and also due to the 'feel-good' Urdu 'shayari'. A woman film in its own right, it saw an excellent camaraderie between Dixit (Begum Para) and her companion Huma Qureshi (Muniya) while touching upon the LGBT community.

Then came Imtiaz Ali's 'Highway', a visual treat cataloguing the landscapes of Northern India, in the backdrop of a kidnap drama involving the young daughter of a rich man, who finds freedom in her captivity. This nuanced film, chronicling the inner journey and anguish of the captor and the hostage, turned out to be Alia Bhatt's most mature performance till date.

This was followed by Madhuri-Juhi Chawla starrer 'Gulab Gang' (released on March 8). The film revolved around an all-female vigilante group led by activist Sampat Pal in Bundelkhand (UP) but it was not exactly a box office success.
The subject was better tackled in Nishta Jain's documentary 'Gulabi Gang' on the same group of pink-saree clad women fighting against caste oppression and gender violence in rural India.
In March came Vikas Bahl's 'Queen', a heart-warming and disarming journey of a naive Rajouri girl Rani (played by Kangana Ranaut to perfection), who embarks on a solo honeymoon after being dumped by her fiance.

The film took the industry by surprise with its solidly-written role for Kangana, coupled with first-rate performances by Lisa Haydon and Rajkummar Rao.
'Queen', which premiered at Busan International Film festival, grossed Rs 61 crore at box office, a rare feat achieved by small-budget movie with a woman in the lead.