Saina (film)

Development

Saina Nehwal revealing the details of the film, on her Twitter account announced the film on 26 April 2017. Earlier, Shraddha Kapoor was signed to play Nehwal's role, and she even started filming in September 2018 after training, but later she opted out of the film due to health issues.^[8] On 15 March 2019, it was confirmed by T-Series head honcho Bhushan Kumar that Shraddha Kapoor will not be playing the role of Nehwal. In a statement they said, "Due to circumstances beyond her control, the actress kept giving other films priority over the national badminton champion’s biopic, so the makers have decided to go ahead with Chopra."^[9]

In June, Manav Kaul was finalized to play the role of Pullela Gopichand who is Nehwal's coach.^[10]

Training

From mid June, Chopra was training herself in playing badminton and practicing the stances of Nehwal.^[11] As many as 12 courts were recreated to represent international venues where Saina Nehwal has played.^[12]

Box office

The film collected total ₹ 1.2 crore in its theatrical run, it was declared a flop and disastrous.^[13]

It was impacted due to COVID-19.

Critical reception

Saina received mixed to positive reviews from critics with praises towards Chopra's performance. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 60% of 10 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.9/10.^[14]

Yogesh Mishra of 'Bollywood Town' says "Movie beautifully talks about the success saga of a middle-class girl from Haryana". Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave 3 out of 5 stars and noted that Parineeti "serves, drops and smashes as [the] badminton champ", writing "[Chopra] gives us a good, solid Saina Nehwal. When she raises her racket after a hard-fought win, you cheer."^[15]

Film critic Anna M. M. Vetticad applauded Chopra for rising to the challenge of playing the sports icon, writing "The actor plays down her naturally vivacious personality and sparkling eyes for the not-so-showy character she plays here. Most impressively, she gets the body language of a sportsperson right and actually looks the part on court." She gave the film 2.75 star out of 5 and pointed out that the film erases Gopichand and skirts inconvenient truths.^[16]

Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, "Saina is a simple ode to eternal optimism". For Chopra's performance she said, "Parineeti push herself in this physically demanding role".^[17]