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Movie review - Amrutha
amrutha movie
Amrutha
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Credits

Jeevi Rating: 3 (Three)
Genre: Child Sentiment
Banner: Madras Talkies
Cast: Madhavan, Baby Keerthana, Simran, Nanditha Das, Chakri, Prakash Raj
Photography: Ravi S Chandran
Music: AR Rehman
Thrills: Vikram Dharma
DTS Mixing: H Sreedhar
Editing: Sreekar Prasad
Dialogues: Sri Rama Krishna
Art: Saboo Siril
Lyrics: Veturi
Choreography: Brinda
Story - Screenplay - Direction: Mani Ratnam

Theatrical Release Date: 14th February 2002

Review

Story

Shyamala (Nanditha Das) is a Tamil expatriate living in Sri Lanka. She gets married to a militant (Chakri). A day after the marriage, the militant goes back and joins his mission of LTTE. Later on Shyalama is evacuated from Sri Lanka and is sent back to India. She is taken care by a refugee camp at Rameswaram where she gives birth to a girl. Shyamala leaves the baby behind and goes back to Sri Lanka to fight for Indians in Sri Lanka.

Srinivas (Madhavan) is a famous writer. He writes a story based on the kid. Indira (Simran) is his neighbor. She suggests him that he should adapt the girl rather than money by writing a story on her. When Srinivas attempts to adapt the girl, the Red Cross people say that a bachelor is unqualified to do so. Srinivas proposes to Indira and gets married and the couple adapts the baby girl and names her Amrutha (Baby Keerthana). Later on, India and Srinivas gives birth to two sons.

When Amrutha enters 9, Srinivas reveals the dark secret to Amrutha that she is born to a refugee from Sri Lanka. Amrutha wants to meet her real mother. Amrutha runs away from home in search of her mother. Srinivas and Indira bring her back. The trio (Indira, Srinivas and Amrutha) leaves for Sri Lanka in search of Shyamala. The entire second half is dealt with how Amrutha searches and meets her real mother and what decision she would take. That is, to stay with Indira and Srinivas or to prefer Shyamala?

Artists:

Baby Keerthana: Baby Keertha is the daughter of Seetha (Telugu heroine) and Parthiban (Tamil Hero). She is a born actress and the lifeline of this film. She is extremely natural in all the scenes. She has bright future ahead on the silver screen.

Madhavan: Madhavan acted sans makeup in Amrutha. He stole the show with balanced acting and controlled performance.

Simran: Simran is very homely in this film. Her made-up curly hair for this film suited the housewife role. Her portrayal of jealousy when Amrutha wants to meet her real mother is excellent. All her emotions are subtle and effective.

Nanditha Das: Her role in the film is a 20 minutes screen presence. But she leaves her mark with excellent performance as the innocent wife and emotionally struggling mother who has to chose between her own daughter and the cause of Indians in Sri Lanka.

Prakash Raj: Prakash Raj played the role of Dr. Vikrama Singhe, who helps Madhavan in finding Nanditha Das. He suited the role well.

Technical Departments:

Story - Screenplay - Direction: This film deals with an emotional story. Screenplay of the film is good, but not tight. Taking of the shots is excellent. Direction is extraordinary when is come to the individual scenes. There are three scenes in which he leaves his mark strongly on us. One of that is the flashback narration to Amrutha after which the entire flashback is shown like Simran is reading it from a book. Second scene is the one in which the daughter and mother meets in the climax. Third one is Amrutha talking to a stranger in Sri Lanka who later on turn out to be a suicide bomber who blasts himself by jumping on to an army convoy. But Mani Ratnam should have considered inserting commercial elements to make it a movie more commercially viable.

Music: AR Rehman's music is apt for the film and suited the mood of movie. 'E Devi Varamo' and 'Sundari' songs drew applause from the audience. The 'Marumallela' song comes as background score whenever Nanditha das appears. Much of the background score is dominated by four sounds. Auto sounds and street noises (for the House scenes), Southeastern music (for Sri Lanka) and sea tidal sounds (beach scenes). AR Rehman music is another plus point. DTS mixing by Sreedhar is also good.

Photography: Photography by Ravi S Chandran is superb. He made excessive use of techniques like shaking camera and rotating it by 90 degrees. The scenic beauty and the canning of blasts towards climax are well depicted.

Editing: Editing by Srikar Prasad disappoints in the second half as the narrative becomes pretty slow. The first half editing is pretty good.

Thrills: Vikram Dharma engineered good thrilling war kind of scenes between LTTE guys and army for this film, which is pretty real and effective.

Analysis: First half of the film is entertaining. Second half of the film is pretty slow and boring at times. The film is rich and well taken. But when it comes to entertainment value, it disappoints. The entire second half has a single mission of Amrutha searching for her real mother and that's where the director loses his grip in sustaining interest among the viewers. The director should have shown how Nanditha Das transforms from a innocent housewife into LTTE activist and what happened to Chakri when he left Nanditha after first night. The ending of the film is abrupt just like the climax of 'Dil Se'. It may not find a liking for the regular moviegoers. But it's a must-watch for all the movie lovers who are interested in get into films line. We have to wait and see what the box office has in store for this Mani Ratnam's film, which released after a gap of 2 years.

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