Post Credits Scene: Press freedom, ingrained conservatism, the generational divide… These are the progressive themes that the otherwise unwatchable Ae Watan Mere Watan tackles.
In the rare promotional interview where she wasn’t talking about yet another image makeover, Sara Ali Khan said that her new film, Prime Video‘s Ae Watan Mere Watan, isn’t so much a biopic of freedom fighter Usha Mehta as it is a tribute to her spirit. “It’s very difficult to put ourselves in that ideological and geographical time frame,” she told Film Companion. “We’re free citizens. The stakes and the scenario of that time is so different to today.” Now, Sara could simply be playing it safe because she didn’t want to say something that would get her in trouble, but in doing so, she allowed herself to be accused of magnificently misinterpreting her own movie.
For a second, however, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt; she is, after all, a history major. She must know that Ae Watan Mere Watan serves as an alternative to the increasingly toxic stream of irresponsible, irredeemable, and in some cases, downright criminal propaganda movies that her peers seem to have dedicated themselves to producing in this election year. Despite the poor direction, writing that could be improved by third-graders, and tragically inept performances from practically everybody on the roster — Sara in 2024 is already giving early-pandemic Taapsee Pannu vibes — the sneakily progressive Ae Watan Mere Watan is about the vitality of press freedom in authoritarian times.
