We’re not stupid. As audiences, we know that a film, show or play based on a real person is hardly going to be a documentary. We know there will be creative retellings, funny bits thrown in, and composite characters to tell the bigger story better. But despite these liberties, why do filmmakers often turn even the most interesting people’s lives into two hours of garbage? Why do some biopics take what really happened and reduce it to a streaming mess?

In Hollywood, Timothée Chalamet is set to play singer Bob Dylan. Angelina Jolie is playing opera singer Maria Callas. Selena Gomez is starring as singer Linda Ronstadt. Billy Porter has been cast as writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin. Sebastian Stan is getting the orange-face treatment to portray former US president Donald Trump. These are wonderful opportunities – each of these lives has been fully lived. That’s probably why viewers are antsy. Will the roles do them justice?

Indian viewers have seen biopics both crush it and crash, as they tackled tales about sports persons, cooks, politicians, mathematicians and more. Some have been sanitised, whitewashed retellings (*cough* Sanju *cough*). Others simply packaged every real-life story into a tale of triumph against odds – consider Dangal (2016), Shakuntala Devi (2020), Chhapaak (2020), Saand Ki Aankh (2019), Shershaah (2021).

Can a biopic be honest and also rise above its subject? Raazi tried. The 2018 film of a RAW agent who gets married into a family of Pakistani military officers to spy for India, had enough drama, suspense and emotion to make it a good film. We’re on the edge of our seats each time Alia Bhatt’s character is almost caught, we feel her dilemmas when she’s forced to kill. Sam Bahadur (2023) tried too. The tale of Sam Manekshaw, India’s first field marshal, had surprising moments of wit and humour – Vicky Kaushal’s Sam even makes a junior and a senior officer salute each other. But the film fumbled by trying to list too many of his accomplishments. (Side note: Kaushal was also fantastic in 2021’s Sardar Udham . Petition to give him a better biopic, please).

Imtiaz Ali got it right with last month’s release, Amar Singh Chamkila. It recreated the events of 1988, when the low-caste Sikh singer was killed by unidentified men. Diljit Dosanjh plays the musician. AR Rahman’s score, fuelled by Chamkila’s own songs, makes the movie sing. Critics grumbled that the film glossed over less glorious aspects of the singer’s life (his second marriage, sexual violence). But audiences lapped it up.

Bollywood does it best when the biopic is of an ordinary everyman doing remarkable things. Farhan Akhtar, playing Milkha Singh in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013), makes it clear that the sprinter didn’t take to running for its own sake – he only entered a race for an extra egg to eat and some milk to drink. Human stories thrive on human moments such as these. In 12th Fail (2023) Manoj Kumar Sharma isn’t glossed up as a buff hero who magically clears the UPSC exam. He cheats, he lies. And the film doesn’t shy away from that.

Sometimes, all it takes for an everyman to be remarkable is to simply live his truth. The 2015 biopic Aligarh, follows Dr Siras, a professor in a small town, grappling with the aftermath of a sting operation aimed to out him as gay. Manoj Bajpayee presents Siras as a lonely old man, wanting to live his life in peace. The scene in which he must sign a letter pleading guilty to the “crime” of being a homosexual will leave you feeling angry on his behalf.

More Indian biopics are in store. Coming up are Chakda Xpress, about cricketer Jhulan Goswami; Emergency, about Indira Gandhi; and Srikanth about Srikanth Bolla, the visually impaired founder of Bollant Industries which hires the differently abled to make eco-friendly products. It doesn’t matter whether these are tales of famous people. We just want good stories, not sanitised retellings and laundry lists of accolades. Yawn.

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