Nitesh Tiwari is good at making family ambition matter, and better still when physical effort does the explaining. We rate the clear, involving storytelling of Dangal, though his fondness for familiar encouragement can make a long film feel longer.
Fi1m perspective
In Dangal (2016), the women’s exertion gives the wrestling its excitement: each small advantage looks hard to hold. Nitesh Tiwari makes the contests easy to follow without assuming we know the sport. He understands how a family’s hopes can make a sporting result matter. The trouble comes when he keeps supplying encouragement after their effort has already persuaded us.
He began by co-directing and co-writing Chillar Party (2011), then made his solo directorial debut with Bhoothnath Returns (2014). Dangal marked his breakthrough. Chhichhore (2019) drew on engineering-hostel life for a coming-of-age story. He returns to families and to people struggling with ambition or failure, usually leaving room for humour.
Satyajit Pande’s cinematography and Ballu Saluja’s editing are crucial to Dangal’s success. They keep the contests intelligible, so the performers’ physical skill can carry the excitement. We tensed up watching the women wrestle because every small advantage looked so hard to keep. Tiwari is right to let the physical difficulty occupy our attention for these stretches.
He is less disciplined about the film around them. At 161 minutes, Dangal spends too long on training routines and repeated encouragement. The early curiosity about how the family works diminishes as the sports-film pattern takes over. Saluja gives the bouts a shape that the longer story lacks, and Tiwari does not find enough fresh detail to justify the time he takes.
There is also a limit to his examination of the father. Aamir Khan makes Mahavir interesting, but Tiwari gives the man’s determination so much weight that his daughters’ opportunities seem to depend on his authority. The actresses have to establish the sisters as people worth following in their own right. We would have liked the film to question the father’s control as carefully as it follows his ambitions. Start with Dangal, particularly if a sports drama is your idea of a well-spent evening.
Biography
Nitesh Tiwari is an Indian film director and screenwriter. Born on 22 May 1973 in Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh, he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 1996 with a degree in Metallurgy and Material Science. He worked as a creative director in advertising before moving into filmmaking.
Tiwari co-directed his debut feature Chillar Party (2011), which won the National Film Award for Best Children's Film. He directed Bhoothnath Returns (2014) and achieved major success with Dangal (2016), which he also wrote. The biographical sports drama became one of the highest-grossing Indian films. His other directing credits include Chhichhore (2019). He is directing the two-part epic Ramayana (2026).
Tiwari is married to filmmaker Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari.
