Ileana D’Cruz says her upcoming film ‘Unfair & Lovely’, which deals with the obsession with fair skin in the country, is a beautifully written story that deals with the issue in a sensitive manner.
Set in Haryana, the film, also starring Randeep Hooda, chronicles the story of a dusky woman who faces social prejudice and how she deals with it.
The film marks the directorial debut of Balwinder Singh Janjua, who has served as a screenplay writer on films like Taapsee Pannu-Bhumi Pednekar-starrer ‘Saand Ki Aankh’, along with ‘Mubarakan’, starring Anil Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor.
In the film, D’Cruz plays the titular role of Lovely, describing the character as one who will strike a chord with the audience and will hopefully change the conservative mindset of people with regards to beauty.
“This story is beautifully written. It is not overtly in your face preachy. It is an entertaining fun story that touches upon a very sensitive topic. It gives you the most human perspective to it. People will relate to it and it will also open up their mind a little more and not be narrow-minded when it comes to colour in this country,” D’Cruz said.
The 33-year-old actor finds the obsession with fair skin bizarre.
“Colour doesn’t define beauty. It is like saying, the sky is not beautiful at night but it is as you get to see stars,” she added.
Backed by Sony Pictures Films India in association with Movie Tunnel Productions, ‘Unfair & Lovely’ is slated to release this year.
Asked whether the film industry sets fuels society’s obsession for a certain standard of beauty, D’Cruz said Bollywood had all sorts of women who are equally “loved and are successful”.
“With this story, I take pride that we have different and unconventional-looking women in our industry. We have all sorts of women in Bollywood who are equally loved and are successful. There is this obsession not in the film industry but more so in the country. I don’t know if the film industry has to be blamed for it because we idolise women,” she added.
D’Cruz recently featured in ‘The Big Bull’ where she played the role of a journalist, Meera Rao.
Produced by Devgn and Anand Pandit with Kumar Mangat Pathak and Vikrant Sharma attached as co-producers, the movie, also starring Abhishek Bachchan, Ram Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Saurabh Shukla, Nikita Dutta and Soham Shah, released on Disney+ Hotstar in India.
