Bhanumati looks to be the name of the season for female characters-the previous week it was for Indraja in Samanthakamani , it’s no different for female leads of this week’s releases- Vaisakham and Fidaa . Vaisakham’s struggles though begin right from the title-the makers use the title song repeatedly to suggest the month’s auspiciousness, but there’s nothing remotely holy in the story, spare a yagam that culminates the film. What you get is a jaded love tale where two people overcome initial friction to realise they’re soul mates later, the director B Jaya makes the journey feel incredibly tedious.
For a change, the character sketch of the female protagonist in an otherwise-chauvinistic film scores better on purpose than her male counterpart. Venu (Harish Varma) is a wastrel boozing, slapping every alternate person he spots, spending most of his time addressing women as ‘figures’ at a cafe near his apartment. We never know what he does for a living, while Bhanumati (Avanthika) is determined to launch her own beauty parlour. The other characters are unique-comedian Prudhvi Raj plays Babu Rao, a betting pro who cheers for Dhoni sporting different IPL jerseys through the movie (while the live telecast shows it’s night time-he cheers during the day). He has a friend who’s bald and jokes about getting his head shaved in Tirumala. There’s an astrologer who asks his customer to make a hole in a wall to please the Goddess of wealth. A mother who’s paralysed seeing the death of her husband is back to normalcy when she realises her son’s about to get married.
Not a single performance strikes a chord though it’s relieving to see flashes of Ramaprabha’s brilliance in this madcap fare. The romance track has anything but love, the boy and girl are in constant pursuit to outdo each other, neither do the actors (Harish and Avanthika) work nor their chemistry. Eeswari Rao wears a morose expression, is saddled to a wheelchair through the running time. The director doesn’t establish the reason behind the fractured relationship between the mom and the son well. It appears that the characters who play Harish’s friends are only waiting to be thrashed. There are no character arcs that feel complete, none of the parts have an identity. The songs, force-fit into the narrative, are an assault to the senses. The film tries to pack in many references from the previous year’s mainstream releases-musically and content-wise too. The climax offers some surprise, though there’s a deja vu of Nithya Menen’s thread in S/O Sathyamurthy . An undernourished sub-plot about valuing human relationships over dogmatic practices is the silver lining here that could have been the film’s main plot.
Vaisakham
Cast: Harish Varma, Avanthika
Director: B Jaya
Music: D J Vasanth
Storyline: Two people get past initial friction to realise they’re soul mates
