Director Satish Vegesna’s Sathamanam Bhavati was all about making time for your parents and showing them that you care. It stuck a chord with the audience.
In Entha Manchivaaduvara , the director suggests that one needn’t rely only on their relatives to step in and strengthen the bonds, even strangers can do it if they have the right intention. As the title suggests, the protagonist is an epitome of goodness and believes in spreading happiness.
Balu (Kalyan Ram) sets up the ‘All is Well: Emotion Suppliers’ company. Think of this company as a rental service for a son/daughter/brother/sister… If an elderly parent feels lonesome since their son or daughter lives abroad, one of this company’s members will step in, give the same affection and try to fill the void.
Who will buy such an idea, right? The director spells out his arguments through his characters. ‘About 15 years ago would you have believed that people will buy water? Now many of us do,’ Balu argues when his childhood friend and lady love Nandini (Mehreen) is sceptical.
- Cast: Kalyan Ram, Mehreen Kaur Pirzada
- Direction: Satish Vegesna
A little about Balu. As a child, he asks his parents to invite all their relatives for his birthday because that’s what matters to him most — sharing happiness with everyone. And he believes that what goes around comes around.
However when Balu loses his parents in an accident, his relatives don’t stand by him. But he doesn’t lose his innate goodness and grows up trying to play multiple roles — grandson or brother as the case may be, to complete strangers.
This role play becomes a full-fledged activity once the company is formally set up. Entha Manchivaaduvara is a remake of the Gujarati film Oxygen . This story unfolds in the lush green regions of Andhra Pradesh that are beautifully captured by the cinematographer Raj Thota, and Gopi Sundar gives a couple of hummable numbers.
But there’s little else going for the film. Watching Kalyan Ram and Mehreen being extremely compassionate and kind to everyone episode after episode, fulfilling roles, becomes excruciatingly boring. The two actors are earnest, and it’s not their fault that the extra sweetness of the story becomes too mundane. Imagine ordering a slice of cake to satiate your sweet tooth and it arrives doused in chocolate and caramel sauce, cream, chocolate shavings and so many other toppings that you struggle beyond a bite or two. This film feels like that.
Things get a little real when the focus shifts to Tanikella Bharani, who doesn’t know about the company. His eventual anger that his emotions have been played with, is understandable.
When the company members harp that they are ready to fulfil any relationship voids, they are dimwit enough to not see the obvious loopholes — what if someone approaches them for a partner with malicious intentions? What if a real grandson or son misunderstand their intentions as an attempt to usurp wealth? These gaffes gets answered through mandatory action sequences.
Somewhere down the line, Satish Vegesna might have felt that the story has way too much goodness and has tried to temper that with a villain — Gangaraju (Rajiv Kanakala).
Suhasini and Sharath Babu do justice to their extended cameos. Vennela Kishore as the sharp-tongued groom can’t do much to save this drab story. The only one with an occasional spark is Naresh who blurts out whatever he thinks.
