Tall tales: Cleaned-up biopics are a washout. Give us some drama, please

It’s biopic season. It’s also a good time to test what movies have learnt from true-life stories and from life itself

We’re not stupid. As audiences, we know that a film, show or play based on a real person is hardly going to be a documentary. We know there will be creative retellings, funny bits thrown in, and composite characters to tell the bigger story better. But despite these liberties, why do filmmakers often turn even the most interesting people’s lives into two hours of garbage? Why do some biopics take what really happened and reduce it to a streaming mess?

Timothée Chalamet is set to play singer Bob Dylan in a new biopic.

Biopics like Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) worked because they were more than just a story of triumph against odds.

India’s most recent biopic was Amar Singh Chamkila, which audiences loved.

Aligarh (2015) which starred Manoj Bajpayee tells a heart-rending story of loneliness.