This is the kind of film that won’t keep you awake but will provide talk-points for discussion at the dinner table
Essentially a tale of matches and mismatches where a smart and confident girl Meenakshi (Sanya Malhotra) arranges an arranged marriage with a boy named Sundareswarar (Abhimanyu), who needs a little more than a hand in interacting with the world. This is yet another film where the writers raise important issues about family, companionship, long distance relationships and careers but fail to integrate them into one inspiring story.
Sundar’s father wants him to help match sarees in the family business, but he wants to make a name for himself. Meenakshi loves this freedom but does the boy who grew up playing ‘book cricket’ have the tools to hone his ambition?
Perhaps, the writers paid attention to the Netflix series little things before coming to terms with it religious Where during the first meeting Sundar, an engineer, describes himself as a great problem solver and the girl, a management graduate, shares her desire to work in a small firm where she can make a big difference.
Read also | ‘Meenakshi Sundareshwar’ trailer: Why is everyone speaking in Hindi?
One thought that this idealistic tone would hurt and be tested in the real world, but director Vivek Soni keeps digging his heels but doesn’t really make the leap. He also calls Rajinikanth but the film fails to take off.
Like last week’s release, we two, our twoThere is no inevitable reason for the trouble arising in the life of the couple. After an interesting match-up, we meet Sundar’s boss Senthil, a half-baked version of Virus. 3 Idiots, who wants the newcomers to be bachelors in his company, Sundar is forced into a long distance relationship with his wife. Sundar struggles in Bengaluru but Meenakshi supports Madurai’s foolish decisions. They talk on the phone, play games on the laptop, because the boss of an IT company probably thinks that in this day and age only a girl’s physical presence can distract her boys.
If it had been cast as a comedy, we would have played together, but it’s hard to ignore the conceit and self-awareness here. Even the background score has a self-congratulatory tone. The way Meenakshi’s character is written, Sundar and her house become that small firm where she makes a big difference without paying any money. Their weaknesses, their fault lines are evident from their absence. The rise of Ananthan, a male friend, raises hopes for more layers in this Kanjeevaram, but it remains more karan johar chiffon.
The Bombay film industry has a tradition of remaking South Indian family dramas, but here a story set in a South Indian setting has been made into a Hindi film with Tamil characters. Perhaps, the tremendous success of dubbed films from South India in the Hindi market prompted the makers to try something original, but the craft is hard to ignore. The story gives no reason as to why South Indian characters are speaking in Hindi on a film set in Madurai, the heart of Tamil Nadu.
Unlike Sundar’s boss, producers are unwilling to invest in raw energy here. Set up like a commercial on South Indian culture for a North Indian audience, Camera Soft focuses only on staples like jasmine garlands, filter coffee, and of course, Thalaivas.
Charming a boring character is hard and Abhimanyu struggles to get us invested in Sundar who is neither Pichai nor an incarnation of Lord Shiva.
Sanya works hard to lift the film from its loss. The way she plays with the unafraid Sundar’s shirt in his absence sparks hopes of an unmatched romance, but the foul eloquence that follows kills the fun. One wants to check, Senthil has word count on the app which keeps a check on the number of words spoken.
It is the kind of film that will not keep you awake but provides content for discussion at the dinner table and if we apply the mood app created by Sundar to the film, the reading will be between Ho Hum and Alright.
(Meenakshi Sundareshwar Currently streaming on Netflix)
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