Film: Beautiful Manasugalu
Cast: Sathish Ninasam, Sruthi Hariharan,
Director: Jayatheetha
Rating: 3.5 / 5
Ideally, a good film is one which easily manages to shorten the distance between a good beginning and a good ending. Beautiful Manasugalu may not be a classic example of a film which achieves this rare feat, but it does put in an effort, making a fruitful progress in a way.
With a woman-centric theme influenced from a real incident, director Jayatheertha’s story is weaved around character assassination and the unerasable aftereffects. The narrative moving towards the climax is guided through enough suspense, clearly indicating the director had ruminated enough to get an immaculate understanding of the route he intended to take right from the beginning.
The film begins with Rachna (Swathi Konde), a police officer’s daughter, being kidnapped. The episode too disappears only to come back after the interval, before which the film engages the audience with the love story between Pacchi aka Prashanth, son of a wine store owner and Nandini, a middle class girl working in a beauty salon. Their love and life is tested in the second half when her saloon is raided on suspicion of running a racket. Nandini is pushed to the wall when Pacchi also disregards her. How Nandini faces the situation, how the media reacts unethically, why was Rachna kidnapped, how the two episodes get interconnected is Beautiful Manasugalu.
Backed by a producer like Prasanna, the naked truth in Jayatheertha’s Beautiful Manasugalu creates a much intense life within the viewer; away from the routine, normal one that surrounds him or her.
The simple and straightforward dialogues, written by the director himself, is definitely a strength and blends well with the situations and characters involved.
Yet another heartfelt and knockout performance by the Lucia pair - Sathish Ninasam and Sruthi Hariharan. Although Sruthi’s character is the crux of the film, Sathish as Pacchi carves his own niche, with his body language and expressions. Sruthi gets into the skin of the character as always and she is one actress who is raising the bar with every film.
After a long time, we see Tabla Naani in an interesting role of a street artiste while Sandeep, Prashanth Siddi, Swathi Konde, Akshata, Meghashree, and Amrutha lending excellent support. Achyuth Kumar, the villain of the film, shines with his powerful act. No doubt, he is one among the fine artistes of Sandalwood.
The lyrics of the song, Beautiful Manasugalu, composed by BJ Bharath is refreshing with its meaningful lines. Both the happier version written by Madan Bellisalu and the patho version written by Raghu Niduvalli, have a certain impact, mirroring the exact emotions. Even the theme song sung by Raghu Dixit is exhilarating. Camerawork by Kiran Hampapura is impeccable. Beautiful Manasugalu has a message relevant in the times of CCTVs, creatively suggesting that there is no getting away from wrongdoings.