Rating: 3.25/5
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Creations
Cast: Venkatesh, Mahesh Babu, Prakash Raj, Samantha, Anjali, Jayasudha and others
Music: Mickey J Meyer
Cinematographer: K V Guhan
Editor: Marthand K Venkatesh
Story, screenplay, dialogues, direction: Sreekanth Addala
Producer: Dil Raju
Release date: 11/01/2013
The much talked about feast of Sankranthi has arrived and this revives the culture of multi-starrers once again in Tollywood. Whether it was heart squeezing or not let us see
Story
Set on the backdrop of a place called Relangi, here lives an honorable man fondly called as Relangi Mavayya (Prakash Raj) who spread smiles and believes in helping others. His two sons Peddodu (Venky) and Chinnodu (Mahesh Babu) are contrasting natures. Peddodu is blunt, not street-smart and short tempered. Chinnodu is more sensible, smart and easy going. Both of them are unemployed and as usual the nagging keeps happening from those around. But their bonding is very strong. Meanwhile, Seetha (Anjali) is the ‘Maradalu’ for Peddodu and she is fond of him a lot. Chinnodu falls in love with Geetha (Samantha) a relative. But her father (Rao Ramesh) is more practical and believes in wealth and earning than anything else. This also creates a gap between both families. How different turns take place in their lives forms the rest of the story.
Performances
Perhaps this is the first time that Venkatesh got so less dialogues. Most of his work was done with his stiff body language. Of course the character demanded it so he gave justice to it.
Mahesh Babu is the key factor. He was mischievous, dashingly handsome and he also had to give the due respect in sharing screenspace with Venky. He captured attention wherever he was.
Prakash Raj has merged into the role without any hiccups. His composed act and dialogue delivery is quite matured and he made his presence felt.
Samantha was cute as usual and though there is not much for her in terms of performance her energy levels and her sense of dressing were really appealing.
Anjali is a true performer and at the same time she also has that strong native sex appeal which is hard to miss. She is versatile and delivers a range of emotions with full ease. She will go far.
Rao Ramesh was seen doing something which befits his talent after a long time. He deserves to get more of such quality roles. Jayasudha was natural and neat. Rohini Hattangadi was effective. Kota was okay, Tanikella was apt. Abhinaya was wasted. Ravi Babu was brief. The others did their bit as required and filled the gaps.
Highlights:
- Venky-Mahesh scenes
- Songs
- Cinematography
Drawbacks:
- Slow Pace
- No comedy
Analysis
Tollywood industry is growing big and one would expect quality and diverse entertainment from it. But the industry has always faced the criticism of coming up with routine masala potboilers making it increasingly difficult for family audience to watch and each star giving more importance to their images and egos than good scripts. ‘Seetamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu’ is an attempt to break that jinx. To a good extent, the director has succeeded in breaking it. The biggest challenge for him was to justify the presence of two big stars who never teamed up. For that matter, Tollywood has not seen such combination from decades so the expectations were much higher. And he overcame that with a good balance and worthy characterization.
Secondly, the genre of the film was pure family oriented focusing more on ideals and human values. The director was able to portray that as well. Watching the film makes you connect with the characters more than the actors and that’s what is important.
However, there are few important things the director needs to work on. For a family treat, there are two key elements- plot, humor and emotional peak. Here, the film was more like personal feelings of two brothers that happen in a home and one cannot see a specific storyline. It is more about daily life tale that happens in any Indian middle class family. Of course, this works for the connectivity factor. Given the subject, it is also essential to get those emotional peaks at regular intervals but that didn’t happen at that frequency.
The film takes off on a decent note with the introduction of the characters and how one thing leads to another but it is the pre-interval phase which builds some momentum.
The second half gets into a good rhythm and fills those gaps of emotional and melodrama quotient. But still, there were many areas where this feel could have been strong. The technical and production values are good and three songs were worthy.
Overall, this is a film which should be watched not for what it has to offer but for the total experience and understanding the essence of a family and how one has to relate to each other.
It is true that times have changed, world has changed, people’s mindset has changed and society is no longer the same so to those who are practical and believe in realism (like Rao Ramesh in the film) this will not really entertain them. But if one has to look beyond, the idea behind making this movie is not about idealism or wholesome entertainment, it is about valuing relations and speaking the essence about human touch.
Commercially, the film runs completely on star power despite average content but it has enough potential to woo the family audiences and ladies in a large way to the theatres.
Bottomline: Not for laughs but for emotion
(Venkat can be reached at [email protected] or https://twitter.com/greatandhranews)
