Great film, but not for the reasons you might think

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2017)

A wrestler with potential and big dreams; to make the country he loved proud. Despite his best efforts he did not succeed but he did not give up. One day he aspired to have a son to follow his footsteps.
He did get married but to his (pre-conceived) misfortune he had two daughters, thus leaving his dream of a son who would become a world class wrestler in tatters. Of course, this was to change when one day his daughters got involved in an altercation with a boy and "properly" punished him for misbehaving. This was his epiphany: the fact that he had daughters should not be an impediment to his lifelong dream of having a progeny that would end up being a champion.
That was also the moment, the tragedy for his two daughters begun. Without any consideration for their wants or needs, he begun to groom them for a life of professional wrestling and international glory. Those girls were not asked or considered, they were forced since the only thing that mattered was daddy's dreams. The fact that they were robbed of their childhood was immaterial. Mahavir Singh Phogat just did not care; gold metal was on his mind.
The girls grew up biologically but not emotionally; the fear and need for dad's approval never went away. Even as they progressed in the sports world all their strife was about pleasing dad. It never went away.
This film is a brilliant portrayal of child abuse covered in success. A determined person with no resistance from a submissive spouse went on to take over the lives of his children and formed them in his own resemblance.
Sure, there were successes. The girls became champions, won medals and some will say their father never stopped believing in them when in fact he never ceased to believe in his own sporting ambitions using his children as vehicle. He even buttress it as women's right going so far as to say "no one should say a girl cannot do what a boy can do" or "they would have ended up housewives performing chores". Anything to make himself feel better and justify the emotional robbery he performed on his children.
A brilliant and highly poignant and emotional film, made me want to jump to the screen and rescue Geeta and Babita.