Julie
- Director
- Deepak Shivdasani
- Studio
- Feature film soundtrack| genre =
- Release Date
- 1 January 1975
- Language
- Hindi
- Country
- India
Review
Madhur Bhandarkar's "Julie" is an audacious attempt at social commentary that stumbles between genuine empathy and exploitation, never quite finding equilibrium. The film's central premise—using a sex worker's biographical narrative as the spine for critique—could have been devastating in the hands of a more restrained director. Instead, Bhandarkar approaches the material with the same sensationalist instinct that plagued his earlier work, treating Julie's descent into sex work as a narrative spectacle rather than a human tragedy. Neha Dhupia delivers a committed performance, refusing to make the character a victim, yet the writing constantly undermines her agency. The opening acts in Goa and the Neil betrayal feel lifted from a thousand rejected love stories, lacking the specificity needed to justify what follows. What works is the film's refusal to moralize—Bhandarkar doesn't position Julie as inherently tragic or noble—but what damages it is his tendency toward melodrama when restraint would have cut deeper.
The supporting cast struggles with underwritten roles that feel more like plot functions than characters. Tara's news anchor serves as our moral compass in the crudest way possible, asking leading questions that guide rather than challenge the narrative. Where "Julie" distinguishes itself from Bhandarkar's previous films (which average a pallid 4.5/10) is in its thematic ambition and Dhupia's refusal to sentimentalize—there's a steeliness here absent from his earlier
Storyline
So there's this famous news anchor named Tara who gets approached by a woman claiming some rich guy wants to marry her. Tara decides to hear her out, and the woman—Julie—starts sharing this absolutely heartbreaking story about her life. It all began in Goa where Julie grew up working at her dad's bakery, living a simple and happy life with her boyfriend Neil. But Neil was obsessed with money and success, so he ditched Julie to marry some wealthy businessman's daughter for the cash. Talk about getting your heart shattered, right?
After that terrible betrayal, Julie packed up and moved to Mumbai to start fresh with her friend Dinky. She gets a job working as an assistant for a builder, and things seem to be looking up when she meets Rohan, a design consultant. But surprise, surprise—he turns out to be a total jerk who was basically using her as a pawn in some dodgy business deal with another sleazy guy. When she refuses to go along with it, Rohan straight up tells her he traded her for a contract. Can you imagine? Realizing that she's just been treated like an object by every man she's trusted, Julie makes a shocking decision to enter the sex trade.
Back to the present, Julie reveals who she really is to Tara, and the news anchor is genuinely moved by everything she's been through. She promises to share Julie's story respectfully with the world. During her time working as a prostitute, Julie crosses paths with this businessman named Mihir who's actually different from all the others. He genuinely cares about her as a person and wants to be her real friend, which is something she's never really experienced before.