You may fall in love with anyone or anything but can you fall in love with a spirit? How would that experience be? Can you imagine beautiful girl being a host of that spirit and still be interested in only Spirit?? So many people say it is ‘SOUL’ that you should love not the outer body! What if you literally love a SOUL?!
PLOT : Arjun(Nikhil) falls for the beautiful SOUL behind the hijab of Ayesha (Avika Gor) and without trying to even see how she looks or what her appearance could be. Both agree to marry but on the wedding day, Ayesha skips the ceremony or at least Arjun feels so. Heartbroken Arjun goes with his friend Kishore (Vennela Kishore) to Kerala for Kishore’s treatment. There he finds Amala (Hebah Patel) and likes her character. But he finds out that she is actually Nithya and Amala is a SOUL. And the soul was extracted from her. But another woman Parvathy (Shweta) comes to him and announces her love for him as Amala. So how does Arjun react to this SOULful love? You have watch it on screen!
Performances : Nikhil Siddharth makes a comeback after a dud like Shankarabharanam to his forte that worked for him after Swami Ra Ra. The script oriented filmmaking. He chose another lovable funny script. He carries the whole film on his shoulders right from the word go but at times his immaturity is still showing on screen with few scenes that could have benefited had he been comfortable in the emotional scenes. Well he improved leaps and bounds from his Yuvatha days though. His comic timing in the film is one to look forward to. With Vennela Kishore and Sudarshan as aides he made the movie fun to watch.
Avika Gor with her eyes to do talking impresses very much. With her being the integral part of narration even though her part ends in a jiffy impact lasts. Nandita Swetha gets full marks for her portrayal and she was right on the point with each and every scene. The movie could have easily become ridiculous had she been not the one being Parvathy and Amala. In a lacklustre second hour she made it enjoyable.
Hebah Patel once again shows off her beauty and little bit of Kumari attitude hear and there. She needs to brush up her acting skills for a longer run. But the comic timing of the director and photography of cinematographer saved her big time in this film. Vennela Kishore and Sudarshan are burst out laughter machines in the movie.
Technicalities : Production values are the major high for this movie. With a plot point that makes little sense, if the production values haven’t been that good, movie might have crumbled under its own weight of ridicule. Meghana Arts and P.V. Rao should be appreciated for their efforts.
Editor Chota K Prasad needs a few more hours of practice to get the nuances of editing right one feels. Its not about cutting and pasting job he needs to understand the scene balance and timing as well. Sriram’s Cinematography is very good in the first hour but it goes haywire especially in night sequences in the second hour. He maintains great blocking sense through out the film. A bit more light sense he would be reckoned as one of the bests in the business.
Music by Shekhar Chandra has nothing special to write home about. He needs to come out of his own shadows and score better. A film should be looked at like a chance to innovate and score better than usual like what ARR or Ilaiyaraja did and do. Background Score sounds like we have already heard it somewhere else with different instruments.
Writer director Vi Anand makes a constant and consistent attempt to make believe there is science behind the story but he needed lot more research to make it loophole free and logical. But whatever he dishes out in comedy worked for him like for Maruthi in Prema Katha Chitram. The film needed to be tighter in its more serious portions while comic portions were nailed with perfection.
He needed to decide on going full on fantasy element or take less proven scientific facts for his story. He just tried to mix and match as he please in the name of creative liberties. Even though they worked in first hour, he needed them to work big time in his second hour and all important second hour. He makes a film that could have been an experience of love in the theatres a comedy of errors and horror. Should have worked on his script even more.
Analysis : Not every film can be great but as a critic or an audience member, what one wishes to see is an effort being made by the makers to rise above the regular and mediocre. When you walk into a theatre you never know if you end up watching a Geetanjali or Gitanjali. While both have same name one was a memorable experience while the other was an exercise. This film and story had a great point and first hour showed some part of conviction in execution but second hour lets you down with an uninspired narration.
A watchable one but you find SOUL missing.
Rating : 2.5/5
