Mahanubhavudu

In life, we meet few people who end up making us call them, “Mahanubhavudi ra Babu”, (You’re Great!) in a sarcastic way. As they are not normal like us, we tend to see them as some aliens but what if we have to love them? Can we? I met, an OCD patient today, he seemed quite alright even though he displayed some emotional dysfunctions. But when I got to know his love story, I felt it is more regular than our love stories and a bit special too. Let me explain why …

Plot : Anand (Sharwanand) is an OCD patient in regards to cleanliness. He can’t take even slightest mud on his clothes or in his surroundings. He longs for someone to understand him and love him for what he is. Even though his mother displays such emotion he doesn’t reciprocate to her in the same fashion. But when Meghana (Mehreen) enters into his life, he shows a bit of change for her and around her he behaves slightly different. But one day, when she and her father accept the alliance for marriage, the level of his OCD is revealed to her and Meghana breaks up the relationship. But her father tries to make them both realize their love for each other. What is the incident? How did they come to know their love for each other? Can she accept him with his disorder? Will he ever tries to welcome love into his life and get rid of his disease? Watch the movie on screen to know more ….

Performances : Sharwanand once again proves that he is one of the best performers in Telugu Cinema today. Even though writing doesn’t elevate his character from basic premise, he gives a convincing performance. Because of him, we tolerate and even feel for Anand at few occasions rather than just laughing at him all the time.

Mehreen is a revelation in this film. She proves that she is a pretty lady who can perform well on screen. She gives a decent performance to compliment the writing for her role.

All other actors like Nasser, Bhadram and others have limited scope and we end up wishing they had much more to do than just that. Vennela Kishore successfully brought the house down in second half.

Technicalities : Nazir Shafi, the cinematographer of the movie doesn’t really give the movie a tone. He uses some monotonic lighting schemes here and there, that doesn’t really work with the flow of the film. His problem is with the consistency of lighting in any film he does and he repeats the same here.

Music by Thaman is a big let down. He gives some enjoyable tunes but they don’t really last long with you like some of his earlier works. His obsession with drums and percussion, dominates the Back Ground Score and even though it is okay to hear, the eardrums scream for some respite. He needs to come up with some fresh tunes as soon as possible.

Editing by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao is just plain and more true to the word. As a senior editor he can easily pick on what is working and he seems to not care much about that. Some scenes just drag on unnecessarily and he should have taken care of that.

Writing by Maruthi is so immature when it comes to constructing a good character of an OCD patient, that one feels like asking him to re-visit his script and think again if he seriously needs to make so much fun of a patient. At times, the jokes are too crude and the tone is so loud that we feel he is trying hard to make people laugh rather than let the story and characters grow generically. His writing in important sequences is so improper that one feels like asking him just re-visit his Bhale Bhale Mogadivoy and try to grab some inspiration from how he handled some crucial emotions in that film.

Director Maruthi, plays a safe bet by going in the template format of his previous hit, Bhale Bhale Mogadivoy. He needed to come out of that pattern and treat the unlikable character of Sharwanand with much more heart. The normally anxiety that an OCD patient displays in general is missing here. Also, the soft emotions and simple sequences that can bring them out lack proper effect.

Analysis : Maruthi Dasari, definitely is a talented director and writer, but he needs to control his penchant to poke fun at everything and anything to give a hit film. Yes, in this commercial industry it is must to give a big hit but not at the price of his characters. There are many sequences where we feel, he just used them to follow a template rather than them being there generically. So, we end up feeling the love and all emotions being forcible induced into the script to make an impact but they just fall flat on the ground. On the whole, he succeeds in making a fun weekend film but he is capable of much more as he proved with his Bhale Bhale Mogadivoy.

Rating : 2.5/5

Click Here For TELUGU Review