The year 2020 is coming to an end and now is a good time to look back and reflect at things. Some celebrities, who showed a lot of potential last year, and we were waiting for more amazing content from them. Just a year ago they were the big players, aiming to go higher. What happened to them? Tabu, Bhumi Pednekar, Annu Kapoor, Barun Sobti, Kiara Advani- here’s my list of the actors who were letdowns in 2020.
1. Tabu: One of the all-time greats and one of my favourites, Tabu’s performances have been dangerously sliding into smugness the way I’ve seen some of the greatest actors do in the past. In 2019 she for the first time disappointed me in De De Pyar De where she played Biwi No 1 to Ajay Devgan .Everytime she came face to face with Biwi no 2 Rakul Preet Singh, Tabu had a superior air of I-don’t-care around her. This year as Saif Ali Khan’s bohemian gypsy-like wife in Jawani Jaaneman, Tabu was embarrassingly miscast. But the worst shock was yet to come. In Mira Nair’s excellent series A Suitable Boy, Tabu’s performance as an influential tawaif was pale ,distracted and inadequate. After seeing Mira Nair work magic with Tabu in The Namesake this a big blow to all Tabu fans. We hope she repairs her performing tools before she becomes a parody of herself.
2. Annu Kapoor: Another great actor, his debut on the OTT platform in Paurushapura was shockingly inappropriate. The stink of cheap eroticism pervaded the great Kapoor’s performance. While pretending to rape a plethora of women I’ve never seen him ham like this before. Some projects bring out the worst in all the actors.
3. Barun Sobti: In 2019 after watching his subtle performance in Tu Hai Mera Sunday and 99 Yards I had great expectations from this naturalistic actor. But then in 2021, Barun discovered the pleasures of punctuated pounding performance in web serials. After Asur where Arshad Warsi stole the show effortlessly he was woefully miscast as a Muslim cop in Halahal and disastrously languid in The Missing Stone. What happened to the actor who once told me he can never overact. Never say never, heh Barun?
4. Bhumi Pednekar: She was a disappointment in 2020. In the over-sexed Dolly Kitty Aur WohChamakte Sitare where she misconstrued sex-talk to be a sign of boldness, she was an outright disaster in Durgamati where she played a woman possessed. The tackiness in the scenes were she transformed into a spirit was not entirely Bhumi’s fault. Even Shabana azmi would be perplexed when pummeled with puerility.
5. Kiara Advani: She was fairly effective earlier during the year in Guilty . But in Indoo Ki Jawani and Laxxmi she came across as a mannequin, a pretty prop with little to do except bat her eyelids, bite her lips and wriggle her hips . A pity that she failed to consolidate on the advantage that she attained after her infamous orgasmic outing in Karan Johar’s short film. After the Big O her performances in 2020 were anti-climactic.
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