English Vinglish in Satyarth Nayak's comprehensive

Sridevi plays Shashi Godbole, a mousy housewife who is constantly slighted by her husband and daughter for her flawed English. Given that the plot echoed her own real-life struggles with various languages, the actress dives headlong into the role. Watch her first frame where she turns to look at the audience-- that face back on-screen after fifteen years like an old friend, that look still cherubic, those eyes still limpid. Minutes into the film, she has already tunnelled her way into your heart with 'Jhaaz' scene.

One of Sridevi's biggest strengths had always been the vulnerability she could project on-screen, endearing herself to the viewer. More than a decade later, that power was intact. Gauri recalls her experience of directing the legend: "After every take, we would just exchange a look and know if it had gone well or not, if something had to be amped up or toned down. Such was her brilliance that even if I was in a bad mood, just watching her perform would cheer me up. Watching her act, I would feel like nothing else mattered. Nowhere could you say that she had not faced camera for fifteen years. More than being a superstar, she was super real, she never allowed her stardom to overpower my script. She was great because she has the guts to be human."

Co-star Adil Hussain shares how Sridevi had bamboozled him in their first rehearsal itself. They were trying out a mock scene and out of the blue, Adil improvised a line. But even before he could finish uttering the whole of it, the actress shot back an instant reply. He says: "I was stunned. Without knowing what I was going to say, she had somehow instinctively anticipated it. A reaction like that comes only when the actor is totally immersed in the moment. I later told her how Sadma had affected me and her eyes turned moist. I discovered how defenceless she was, a rare quality in actors."

If Shashi acts as a non-dancer, she also acts as an accomplished cook. Despite having barely learnt cooking in real life, the way Sridevi's fingers nimbly shape a laddoo, convinces you that Shashi has been doing it all her life.

Sridevi keeps channeling the character's frailty throughout the first half. Notice how Shashi's face shatters when her daughter finds her an embarrassment at the PTA meeting.

Watch how she stammers before the officials at the passport office.

But nowhere is that powerlessness more gut-wrenching than in the film's iconic cafe scene. Watch how her eyes doggedly follow the Barista woman's lips, latching on to every English word, how her face deflates when she notices the waitress sniggering, how she lights up for a moment and again burns out. When Shashi finally bolts from the cafe, whimpering like an animal, it is not pain or anger but raw humiliation that Sridevi conjures. 

Gauri remembers being tense while shooting it: "We were losing daylight and had to wrap this scene fast. I was worried if the rush would affect Sri's performance but I was wrong. Despite the limited time, she delivered something beyond my imagination. She just took what was on paper to another level. Even that barista woman who had to be rude to her in the scene was in awe of Sri and kept thanking me for making her perform with such an outstanding actress."

For Iyer, it would always be her silences that were most eloquent: "More than her words, it is her pauses that breathe life into this scene. For me, the best thing about any Sridevi's sequence are not her lines but those interludes she created in between. There would just be that millisecond of thought, that millisecond of a look or gesture. The real Sridevi lived in those milliseconds."

But there are also moments where Shashi's glee comes piercing through like a sunbeam. Watch it in the montage where her customers rave about her laddoos or when she breaks into an impromptu MJ jig. 

You see it during the jolly cameo by Amitabh when he reunites with the actress on-screen after twenty years. Big B doing a cameo in a Sridevi film again underlines what her stardom was in Bollywood.

But it is when her teacher calls her an 'Entrepreneur' that her Bambi eyes gleam the list.

If New York had hurt in the cafe, it heals her now in the classroom. Her MJ whoop in the middle of the street tells you what cinema legends truly are -- believable yet inexplicable.

And yet, now and then Sridevi would turn childlike on the sets. Perhaps so joyous was she feeling during the making of this film that she would frequently let her guard down. Once, Gauri had come looking for her when the shot was ready, but the actress was nowhere to be found. Imagine the mirth when everyone discovered that she was hiding under a quilt. Gauri shares: "She would keep calling me 'Khushi Two' and play pranks on me. That Micheal Jackson move was entirely Sri's idea."

With Rajeev Ravindranathan being a fellow tamilian, he would often narrate jokes to Sridevi in their native language. The actress would burst into peals of laughter and her tears would ruin her make-up. After a point, the ADs would angrily intervene as every fresh touch-up would delay the shoot. But for Rajeev discovering Sridevi's wacky side in real life was the biggest revelation: "She was a laugh riot. I really think she could have given stand-up a go. Her straight-faced humour was a thing of beauty. The stories she recounted to us were legendary. I remember one that had her in Ooty shooting three songs on three sides of a hill for three different movies."

The second half charts Shashi's metamorphosis and Sridevi plays it with such nuance that we applaud every milestone along the way. Watch how her body language alters as she gains confidence. Note how she unconsciously motormouths a cafe order in impeccable English or makes her way through the subway turnstile. We share her every rapture, every triumph. If audience were rediscovering her magic on-screen, her co-stars were awed by her magnanimity off it. 

Rajeev Ravindranathan reveals: "She gifted away many of her lines to others because she felt it would make the scene funnier. She would take great pains to ensure that everyone was always in frame and not being covered by another actor. She beautifully balanced the energies of her off-camera relationships with her character's interactions. A tiny example is in the wedding scene. Knowing my personal penchant for the sweet stuff, she serves my character, Rama, an extra laddoo out of the blue. And I won't ever forget the twinkle in her eye when she did it, all in the middle of live shot."

While the actress's on-screen avatars had been unconsciously inspiring the LGBT community for years, Shashi fully goes vocal. Her championing of homosexual love in one of the film's scenes is a belated nod to an entire community that had been idolizing her for decades. 

Iyer exults: "She uttered exactly what we have been always trying to communicate. You don't need to understand what homosexuality is, you just need to understand what love is"

Shashi also encounters a French dreamboat, Laurent (played by Mehdi Nebou), who describes her eyes as 'two drops of coffee in a cloud of milk'.

You hear Shashi's silence again when her husband gloats that she was 'born to make laddoos'. Ranjan points it out as an instance of what made Sridevi's art to classic:

"Her face says it all. There's no need for dialogue. Nothing is internalised and there is just a touch of the gestural. It is a moment of beautiful silent-film acting very few actors are capable of today. It gives us a snapshot of ancient performing arts such as dance or mime which need no explanation or subtitles."

Adil also endorses that Sridevi was a very Indian actor because she included her audiences in her performance: "This harks back to our traditional art forms which did not have the concept of a fourth wall. Sri could always reach out to the last person in the cinema hall. Although acutely aware of the fourth wall, she transcended it. She made sure that the audience could always see her eyes and through that, see the turmoil going inside her. She allowed them to enter her soul. She had a sacred relationship with her viewers and her intent was to uplift them to a greater reality. She was the only Indian actress I have seen who could be so transparent before the camera."

And like so many of Sridevi's iconic moments on celluloid, this sequence too had been physically daunting. It had snowed two days ago and she had to shoot in just a Chanderi sari in sub-zero temperature. And she had again converted that disadvantage into an asset. Gauri reminisces: "She was shivering and her nose was running. But instead of backing out, she actually made her cold and shortness of breath a part of her performance to enhance Shashi's hesitancy as she gives the speech. I would go weak-kneed just looking at her eyes; I wonder what they most be doing to men."

Years ago, child Sridevi had kept sitting on her compound wall for hours, awaiting for her mother's instruction. That part of her had, perhaps, still not grown up. It had been snowing again while filming a montage for English Vinglish and Noorie found the actress sitting outside, trembling in cold. When she rushed to her to ask why she was not getting inside, Sridevi replied like a child, "But Gauri has not told me to go in." Noorie alerted the unit and only then did Sridevi return indoors.

Sridevi's climactic monologue is the crown jewel of English Vinglish. And just like Shashi's evolution, her speech moves from vague to vigorous to victorious. Her English is halting but her wisdom heartfelt. Her performance compassionate as she makes it both physical and abstract. Gauri goes for the 'shanta rasa' here and the actress becomes an epitome of that. This scene remains the purest distillation of not just what Sridevi was but also what she had become more contemporary than current actors. She was new-age and yet vintage. By making the predictable so precious, she makes it a scene that could hold its head high anywhere in world cinema.