It is hard to believe that Kangana Ranaut has directed Emergency, the excellent biopic on the multifaceted little-understood India Gandhi, while playing her so skilfully on screen.

At first the whining voice tends to get in the way. But we soon get used to it—and at almost three hours , there is plenty of time for whatever emotional and other adjustments this canny biopic requires—and within fifteen minutes of playing time Ms Ranaut assumes the space that Mrs Gandhi occupied, with an impressive equipoise.

So overpowering is Ms Ranaut’s screen presence—the hurt, the pride, the anger, the egotism, the obstinacy, the vulnerability—that it is easy to overlook the sheer excellence of the presentation.

Emergency is not just another biopic thrown into the prolonged season of genre-orgying. It is a story that needed to be told, and is told with an assertive acumen that makes for an...