It is the birthday of Dil Mushkil Hai star today. People love Aishwarya Rai Bachchan – the beauty brand. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is still the most saleable product we have. Brand managers and filmmakers wax lyrical about her timeless appeal.
In public and media perception, she is Bollywood royalty. Partly, because of her long run as a star but mostly, for being a Bachchan family member. Bollywood isn’t known to be too kind to heroines who have crossed 40.
But it has made an exception for Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who turns 43 today, a precarious age when most heroines are long sent home packing to play the role of soccer mom while the male actors with their second marriages and ever-growing broods are allowed a freer run.
Aishwarya who plays an Urdu poetess in Karan Johar’s recent candyfloss Ae Dil Hai Mushkil has made at least three comeback attempts in the last two years. It is yet another shot by Ash, as the media fondly calls her, at staying relevant in a constantly changing movie-land now flushed with younger stars like Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt and countless others.
She may be one of the leading protagonists of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, a mixed-bag critically but could well end up being a box-office hit but Ash is by no means the film’s biggest star. The much-younger Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, and even Fawad Khan, enjoy more box-office clout than does Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
Somehow, her star power has rarely translated into ticket conversions.
Ask any trade pundit and they will admit in private that casting Aishwarya in a film is no guarantee of its box-office success. She has more duds than hits in her filmography.
Consider her last two films: Sanjay Gupta’s Jazbaa, in which she made a comeback as a single mom who is forced to defend a criminal as a lawyer. This was a meaty role. But the audience was left wanting for more. Earlier this year, she attempted a second comeback, with the true-life Sarabjit.
Lets hope she will make a true comeback and stay in the industry.
