Yami Gautam Dhar has not only given her career-best performance but her portrayal of the soft-spoken but fiercely resilient Shazia Bano in Haq is undoubtedly one of the best performances we have seen in Indian cinema this year. From a shy and blushing young bride, to an opinionated homemaker, to her trying her best to come to terms with her husband’s second marriage, to her becoming an indefatigable woman seething with anger and humiliation resilient to fight for her and her children’s rights upon being left by the husband to fend for herself—Yami is impeccable and seamless in each phase of Shazia Bano’s character arc.

Yami has always been a competent, if underrated actor, having proven her acting prowess in the very first Hindi movie Vicky Donor (2012). She went on to prove her versatility and range in movies like Article 370 (2024), OMG 2 (2023), A Thursday (2022), Bala (2019), and Kaabil (2017). But with Haq she completely hits it out of the park, especially in the last courtroom monologue. Replete with a stutter here, a mid-sentence- break there as she finds herself getting overwhelmed and tries to find her courage and voice back to go on, she imbues Shazia with a dignified defiance that not only grounds the character but also ensures she organically inhabits the space where women are not supposed to have a voice, let alone take one’s husband to court.

Although if the movie was about the real Shah Bano, Yami might have been a miscast as the real Bano was 62 years old when she got divorced and started her legal battle with her ex-husband, but as the fictional Bano, she fits the role to the T. Maybe being an introvert, Yami knows the art of silent rebellion. But it is also her inner fire that makes Shazia a voice that the nation is made to sit up and take note of. As I watch Yami complete disappear in Shazia, I remember her sister Surilie’s lines during one of our interviews: “Yeh kuch bhi karti hai, jee jaan laga deti hai.” Indeed. It shows.