Tag Archives: Gopi Sundar

Majili

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Majili

Shiva Nirvana’s Majili is a romance that feels oddly dated where the characters make some very strange choices, and the plot harks back to attitudes that might have seemed plausible 30 years ago. Naga Chaitanya plays a cricket player whose life is destroyed when he loses the girl of his dreams, while Samantha is the woman waiting patiently for him to notice her. The film is helped considerably by good performances from the main leads, but it’s the support cast of Posani Krishna Murali, Suhas and Rao Ramesh, who end up making the film more interesting than the story would suggest.

The film begins with Poorna (Naga Chaitanya) as a miserably grumpy cricket umpire who spends his night getting drunk in a specific hotel room. The story behind his descent into the bottle is told in flashback when he was a younger wannabe cricket player, and his father had just given him a year to work at making it into a career. Shortly after landing a place on the Vizag Railways team, Poorna meets Anshu (Divyansha Kaushik), the daughter of a navy officer based in the town and the two start a relationship. It’s a patchy affair right from the start as there is little chemistry between the couple and their social divide makes their meetings awkward and clumsy. That might have worked, except there doesn’t seem to be any reason for Anshu to prefer Poorna over anyone in her own social circle, and after he puts her into a situation where she is almost raped, Anshu’s continued desire to be with Poorna seems even less likely. Although Chaitanya tries his best, this is just another typical love story, with the usual parental opposition and a bad guy in the form of Bhushan (Subbaraju). Divyansha Kaushik is bland and unobjectionable, but the romance is all just too unlikely to make any impression, and the finale that ends with Poorna in a hotel room seems completely implausible and a whimpering end to a supposedly grandiose love affair.

Poorna’s subsequent descent into alcoholism and heartache-induced torpor is also overly extreme for such a lacklustre romance. He wallows in his misery and seems unable to find anything worthwhile to do with his time other than mourn the loss of his ‘one true love’. However, at some point in the intervening years he somehow manages to get married to Sravani (Samantha Akkineni) who puts up with his idleness, drunkenness and morose personality with completely unlikely composure. The story tries to make us believe that she always loved Poorna and is happy simply to be his wife, despite the cold shoulder treatment she receives and his total lack of support – either emotional or financial. In fact, it’s Sravani who supports the family with her job as a railway clerk since Poorna’s father (Rao Ramesh) has retired and Poorna is too busy being miserable.

Thankfully, despite her irritatingly subservient attitude, Samantha breathes life and energy into the film. Her interactions with her father (Posani Kirshna Murali) and Porna’s father (Rao Ramesh) are the perfect mixture of funny and sad, and here at last is the spark that was so sadly missing in the first half. Although Sravani’s attitude to her husband quickly becomes wearing, Samantha somehow manages to keep her character from being completely irritating and despite wanting to shake some sense into her, I felt that her rationale was at least constant and made sense from her character’s point of view. Poorna on the other hand was just a waste of space who didn’t take any of the many opportunities he had to turn his life around. The final piece in the puzzle that leads to Poorna’s redemption is lazy and poorly done, although again it’s Sravani who has the best of the generally weak dialogue and ends up as the only one who acts according to her established persona.

Posani Krishna Murali is brilliant as Sravani’s father and his comedy keeps the film from being totally subsumed in weepy tragedy. Rao Ramesh is also unfailingly sensible and brings some much-needed common sense, as does Suhas who shines in a small role as one of Poorna’s long-suffering friends. Subbaraju is totally wasted in the role of a small-town thug with a political agenda who has no significant part to play other than to be the ‘bad guy’ for Poorna to fight at regular intervals. This would have been a much better film without the usual Telugu commercial elements – removing the dull romance, repetitive fight scenes and glamourous song sequences and adding more of Sravani, her family and her story would have made for a more interesting film. Some explanation for Sravani’s ridiculously self-sacrificing attitude would have helped too other than the wishy-washy enduring love that is used.

Overall, Majili is disappointing. The story isn’t plausible and never comes together to form a coherent whole. The bittiness of the plot transfers to the characters, who also don’t always act in keeping with their role. There simply isn’t enough of the good parts – Samantha, Posani Krishna Murali – but instead far too much insipid romance. Gopi Sundar’s songs though are generally good and Vishnu Sharma’s cinematography captures the claustrophobic feel of the family well in the latter half of the film. I wanted to like this, I like Chaitanya and Samantha and perhaps as their first film together I expected a little too much. Worth watching for Samantha, the support cast and Chaitanya in the second half.

Geetha Govindam (2018)

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Geetha Govindam

Parasuram’s Geetha Govindam takes a while to get going, but once it’s up and running, this romantic comedy is better than expected, mostly due to the excellent performances from Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna. It also helps that the heroine is a strong character who doesn’t get repeatedly shunted aside by the hero, and that the story takes an alternative approach to the usual stalker plot. Add in some catchy songs, another good performance from Rahul Ramakrishna, and Geetha Govindam is definitely well worth a watch.

The film starts with Vijay Govind (Vijay Deverakonda) relating the story of his romance to a passer-by (Nithya Menen) as she waits for her car to be repaired. This seem to be a rather outdated way to introduce the story, but there is a reason for Nithya’s character, although that isn’t clear until the very end of the film. However, instead of diving right into the story, there is a prolonged and rather slow introduction that sets up Vijay’s character. For the most part he’s a fairly typical young bloke who enjoys hanging out and drinking with his friends, but Vijay also has a rather idealised view of marriage that makes him appear naïve and innocent. That doesn’t stop him following a girl and staging a mock fight scene in an attempt to make her fall for him, but he’s also flustered by the amorous advances of one of his students at the local college where he teaches. Vijay also has a bad habit of listening to his friend Krishna (Rahul Ramakrishna) who has a rather more direct approach to women and acts as the devil on Vijay’s shoulder, enticing him into bad decisions. The angel on Vijay’s other shoulder is his father (Naga Babu) who has brought him up to respect women and act responsibly. The question here is which voice Vijay will follow when he sees Geetha (Rashmika Mandanna) in a temple and is instantly attracted.

After a less than auspicious start, Vijay’s luck turns when he’s travelling home for his sister’s engagement and Geetha ends up on the same bus. Unfortunately for Vijay, Geetha still isn’t in the slightest bit interested and when he starts to talk to her on the bus she shuts him down immediately, calling him out for asking stupid questions. I love this interaction as Geetha demonstrates she won’t take any nonsense from Vijay and that she is quite able to stand up for herself.  A partial softening on her stance as the journey goes on, is abruptly banished when Vijay does something stupid, egged on by the drunken ramblings of his friend Krishna. From here, things go seriously downhill, made even worse when it turns out that Geetha’s brother Phaneendra (Subbaraju) is engaged to be married to Govind’s sister (Mouryani). Geetha wants her brother to avenge her honour and Phaneendra is out for blood while Vijay’s father asserts that he would literally die if Vijay ever did anything to smirch his reputation. Vijay now has a serious problem on his hands. Worse still, he has to rely on Geetha not revealing the true story, when she has every reason to shame Vijay in front of his family.  To add to his woes, Vijay and Geetha are tasked with delivering the invitations and doing all the shopping for the wedding, which throws them together repeatedly back in Hyderabad.

Geetha thinks that Vijay is an irresponsible womaniser and sees evidence of his debauchery everywhere. Vijay on the other hand is desperate to prove that he’s actually a nice guy and that everything that happened was an accident. This gives plenty of opportunity for some excellent comedy but still allows the point to be made that Geetha has every right to be angry and upset – a point which Vijay also acknowledges. His continual ‘Madam’ and ‘sorry’ are used to good effect as is his claim that he did not mean it wantedly (I think the subtitles meant wantonly which would make more sense!).

The friction between Vijay and Geetha works well due to excellent chemistry between the two actors. Rashmika is perfect as an angry young woman who sees no reason to believe anything her brother-in-law-to-be says and her responses to his protestations of innocence are delivered with just the right amount of distain. Rashmika is just as good here as she was in Kirik Party with the added bonus that she is onscreen for the entire film here. Naturally she does start to fall for Vijay – with all that charm and a very cute smile, it would be hard to resist, but Rashmika ensures her characters change of heart is kept convincing and reasonably plausible. Even if all it takes is 1 explanation and a song.

Vijay Deverakonda completely sheds his Arjun Reddy persona and totally owns the film as a man desperate to redeem himself in the eyes of the girl he really likes while making sure he doesn’t incur the wrath of her brother or jeopardise his sister’s wedding. There is some excellent comedy here as Vijay wriggles and grovels, willing to try almost anything to prove to Geetha that he’s not the man she thinks he is. While it’s impressive that Parasuram manages to take a fairly standard character and bring something new to the story, Vijay really takes on all of his characters failings and makes them believable. There is really no rational explanation why the nice and well brought up Vijay would do some of the things suggested by Krishna, but Vijay Deverakonda makes it seem not only plausible but perfectly logical nonetheless.

While the relationship between Geetha and Vijay is well done, there are a few misses in the film too. Vennela Kishore pops up as a potential bridegroom for Geetha, but his character is oddly written and doesn’t fit well into the rest of the story. The slow introduction is also an issue and there are a few scenes that are just too unlikely to work. These end up as distractions rather than adding to the story, and as a result some of the second half feels overly long and drawn out. Adding Nithya Menon’s character to a frame narrative is also an odd choice and really not necessary while a few of the other characters, Ravi Prakash’s police officer for example, don’t add anything to the plot either.

Overall Geetha Govindam is funny and entertaining, while the romance is just different enough to keep the story interesting Gopi Sundar’s music is well incorporated into the film and the songs are catchy and well choreographed to show the two leads to advantage. Worth watching for Vijay’s charm and Rashmika’s confidence which make this one of the better Telugu romantic films of the year so far.

Udaharanam Sujatha

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Udaharanam Sujatha

Udaharanam Sujatha tells the story of Sujatha, a hard-working single mother, and her attempts to ensure her daughter Athira studies and passes her year 10 school exams. Sujatha has big plans for her daughter, but the problem is that Athira isn’t interested in studying and rather than thinking about her future, her dreams involve movie stars instead. Phantom Praveen has directed this Malayalam remake of Hindi film Nil Battey Sannata by Ashwini Iyer Tiwari (who has also remade the film herself in Tamil), with a more Kerala-centric screenplay from Naveen Bhaskar and a few changes to the lead characters. It’s a simple story that focuses on the mother-daughter relationship and features excellent performances from both Manju Warrier and Anaswara Rajan as her somewhat rebellious daughter. I did have a few issues with some parts of the film, but the overall feel good factor and balanced mix of drama and humour ensures Udaharanam Sujatha is well worth a trip to the cinema.

Sujatha (Manju Warrier) gets up well before dawn to start her seemingly endless round of jobs to raise enough money to pay for her daughters education. Sujatha herself left school after 9th standard which she feels has severely limited her choice of occupation, and as a result, she resolves that her daughter needs to do well at school. However Athira (Anaswara Rajan) doesn’t care at all about her studies and has no thought for her future. She lives in the present, watching music videos on TV, playing with her friends and day-dreaming about Dulquer Salmaan. Athira doesn’t appreciate the long hours that her mother works to fund her education and even tells Sujatha that a doctor’s daughter will be a doctor and an engineer’s daughter will be an engineer, so since she is the daughter of a kitchen maid, that is all that she will become. Since Athira also regularly and quite spectacularly fails her tests at her school it seems unlikely that Sujatha’s grand plans will succeed no matter how hard she pushes Athira.

For one of her jobs, Sujatha works for prominent script writer George Paul (Nedumudi Venu) who listens to her daily recitation of her worries and fears about Athira with a surprising amount of tolerance. He finds a friend (Alencier Ley Lopez) who runs a tutoring service and who is willing to offer Sujatha a substantial discount, but only if Athira scores more than 50% in her maths exam. When Sujatha complains to George about the unlikeliness of Athira reaching this target, he suggests that Athira needs some competition and persuades Sujatha to go back to school herself and complete her Year 10 education.

A scene where Athira discovers her mother’s plans and attempts to cajole her mother with promises of improved study interspersed with pleas and general teenager angst is brilliantly written and perfectly performed by Anaswara. Her mother’s response is just as good and gets to the heart of the relationship between the two. Sujatha is determined to make her daughter succeed in life and is willing to go through the humiliation of going back to school to force her daughter to study. Athira’s subsequent tantrums and her refusal to acknowledge her mother’s presence in the classroom are also well handled, while Sujatha’s gradual acceptance by the other students seems plausible given her ability to cook! The good points though are mixed up with some terrible clichés such as the bespectacled nerd of the class who helps Sujatha understand maths, and the horribly abusive teachers who seem out of place in a film about the benefits of education.

Also problematical is the inference that doing a job such as working in a factory or as a maid is somehow shameful and to be avoided at all costs. While I can sympathise with Sujatha’s desire that Athira gets a good education and has options to choose from, it doesn’t follow that working in these jobs is wrong. Every parent wants the best for their child and particularly would prefer to see that they have a comfortable life, but this doesn’t mean that a house maid should be looked down on, just because of her occupation. However, aside from these points, the rest of the story is a heartening tale of the importance of a good education and how Sujatha manages to change her daughter’s attitude. It’s surprising that Sujatha manages to attend school at all, given her busy schedule of work but Naveen Bhaskar doesn’t let logic get in the way of a good story and after all, perhaps Sujatha has a time-turner hidden away somewhere.

The star here is undoubtedly Manju Warrier who is excellent as the harried mother desperate to wake some ambition in her daughter. Her work ethic is amazing and well portrayed, but what really stands out is the love she has for her daughter and her strength of will to make sure that nothing will get in the way of her dreams. She is fantastic as a concerned mother and completely inhabits the character of a cook/pickle-maker/house-maid/cleaner from a slum area of the city. Anaswara Rajan is also excellent as the bratty and ungrateful Athira who resents her mother’s interference in her life. Her whining is brilliantly irritating and her self-absorption typical of a teenager who naturally knows better than her mother. Together the two actors make a formidable team and it’s the warmth of their relationship that takes the film up a level to make it more than a simple moral tale about the value of education.

Udaharanam Sujatha

The other characters all have a small but significant part to play in the drama, and do it well. Joju George is excellent as Sreekumar, the headmaster and maths teacher who reluctantly agrees to take Sujatha on as a student. His role provides much of the humour, but he also succeeds in making his eccentric character more sympathetic than first appears and he plays a part in assisting Sujatha to further her own dreams. Nedumudi Venu is excellent throughout and he also adds some more light-hearted moments as does Sujatha’s potential suitor while Abhija Sivakala provides drama as a coconut seller who has lent Sujatha money and wants it paid back. Mamta Mohandas is also good in a small role as the local collector who takes on the task of bringing a supply of drinking water to Sujatha’s area and acts as the inspiration for Sujatha’s dreams.

The songs from Gopi Sundar are generally upbeat and suit the mood of the film, but one or two in the second half slow down the narrative and could have been excluded without losing anything from the story. Technically the film looks good, although Manju Warrier’s face is distractingly shiny at times, presumably due to the lack of make-up to give her character more authenticity. The moral message is hammered home a little too heavy-handedly at the end, but for the most part it’s the drama between mother and daughter that takes centre stage and gives the film its appeal. I like that Sujatha has the confidence to go back to school to improve her prospects and that she sees education as vitally important to secure her daughters future. It’s also heartening that she doesn’t need a man to prove her worth and prefers to manage alone despite having a suitor with a good job who could make her life easier. There are enough good points here to balance out the few negatives, and even if the dialogue is occasionally a tad shaky the performances are excellent and the story captivating. Recommended for Manju Warrier, Anaswara Rajan and a reminder that it’s never too late to follow your dreams.