The Best Debutants of 2019

New talent, new blood…our cinema needs it all the time. Sadly, some really effective debut performances this year went unnoticed when the parent-films collapsed. Here’s looking at those that made an impact in their Bollywood debut.

Siddhant Chaturvedi in Gully Boy: Last year it was Ishaan Khattar. Quite easily the best debutant of the year 2019 is Siddhant Chaturvedi, whose rapper act in Zoya Akhtar’s film brought so much to the table, we all fell of our chairs. What a discovery!

Abhimanyu Dassani in Mard Ko Dard Nahin: As a freak who feels no physical pain, Abhimanyu pours his soul into making the painless action hero Surya believable and likeable. It’s a finely crafted character played by an eager newcomer who would rather fail than falter.

Shreya Dhanwanthary in Why Cheat India: Her performance went completely unnoticed. But as a small-towner pursuing a bigtime wheeler dealer, Shreya made her character a complex study of middleclass ambitions gone out of control. Sadly no long queues to sign her as she has no Karan Johar to back her.

Zaheer Iqbal and Pranutan in Notebook: The two newcomers were fluent in their movements expressing growing fondness for their doppelganger love. Zaheer Iqbal is unconventionally heroic. He displays a surprising spurt of unrehearsed emotions. Pranutan has a fragile yet strong presence. With time this talent can be polished into a definition of gleam.

Zara Webb & Shivum Raina in No Father In Kashmir: One look at the innocent articulate eyes of the two lead players, and you forgive the film’s inability to tighten the screws around the edges. Zara Webb and Shivum Raina are prized finds. They seem to belong to the film’s Kashmiri landscape, and are more fluent in their expressions of snarled nativity.

Karan Kapadia in Blank: Though this film drew a, well, blank, Karan was worth the effort. He chose to make things almost impossibly difficult for himself in his first film. Playing the suicide bomber who goes through several dark shades of change in the narration, Kapadia gives an explosive account of a reluctant fundamentalist’s craggy journey from damnation to tentative salvation. The way Kapadia uses his voice to convey anxiety and anger is remarkable.

Ananya Pandey, Tara Sutaria in Student Of The Year 2: No remarkable talent was shown by these two attractive young ladies. Nothing comparable with what Alia Bhatt did in the first Student of The Year. But Ananya and Tara had Karan Johar behind them. Before the year ended both had one more film each to their credit. Nothing to write home about. Yet.

Meezan Jaffrey, Sharmin Sehgal in Malaal: The young actors playing the virgin lovers are so fresh appealing and unshackled by guilt, we are gradually swept into the rites of their romance: the initial rebuffs by the girl, including a humiliating stalking allegation in a bus where the passengers thrash the boy. Meezan’s Shiva More takes it all in his stride, the snubs, the fleeting kindness, the sheer challenge of convincing the girl he’s convinced he loves her for life, and beyond.

Vardhan Puri, Shivaleeka Oberoi in Yeh Saali Ashiqui: Vardhan chose a tough role to begin with. His character struggles with demoniacal inner conflicts. And then the she-devil appears in his life. Puri clutches at his character’s throat and shakes it hard enough to give the unstable goings-on an anchoring presence. Vardhan has a bright future ahead. And hats off to debutante Shivaleeka Oberoi for carrying off a role so contrary to what our Bollywood leading ladies are expected to be. She is bang-on in expressing the subtle shifts of emotion in an unhinged mind, from despair to deception. She nails it.

Vishal Jethwa in Mardaani 2: The villain here is a far more complex and disturbing character than in the first Mardaani. He rapes and kills young girls in the educational hotbed of Kota in Rajasthan with devastating impunity. What is even more disturbing is that he talks directly to us, vomiting his perverse thoughts about women and why he wants them brutally assaulted and mutilated writhing on the floor begging for his mercy.

The young actor Vishal Jethwa playing this despicable sub-human trash is so very effective, so clued into his character’s twisted mindset that the villain ends up being far powerful than our female hero Rani Mukerjee.