Actor Kangana Ranaut’s latest project, the Indira Gandhi biopic Emergency, debuted on Netflix on March 14. While the film has broken into the list of the Top-1o non-English films globally, ranking at number 7, it fell short of last week’s Nadaaniyan in viewership figures. Directed by Shauna Gautam and featuring Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor in the lead roles, Nadaaniyan opened to poor reviews and significant trolling.
Kangana’s film about former prime minister Indira Gandhi raked in 1.4 million views in its opening week on Netflix. Interestingly, Nadaaniyan, despite all it the bad reviews and flak it faced, performed better in its first week, posting 3.9 million views. The Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor-starrer has gone through severe backlash on social media but still managed to put up better numbers than Kangana’s political drama. Produced by Karan Johar, the romantic drama also starred Sunil Shetty, Dia Mirza, Mahima Chaudhry and Jugal Hansraj.
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Directed by Kangana herself, Emergency follows Indira Gandhi’s polarising political career and her stints as the prime minister of India. The cast of the film includes Mahima Chaudhry, Anupam Kher, Vishak Nair, Shreyas Talpade and Milind Soman. Emergency earned disappointing reviews as well; it holds a 5.2/10 rating on IMDb. Nadaaniyan’s IMDb rating, on the other hand, has plunged to 3.1/10.
Despite low viewership and poor reviews, Kangana has defended the film and her role in it. In a recent interview, the actor questioned the credentials of people judging her film and her performance. She told India TV, “I want people of the film industry, considering the kind of films that they make, they shouldn’t have any preconceived notion about me. If they don’t talk like, ‘We know what she can do and what her limits are,’ then they don’t have to face so much insult.”