Film: Noorondu Nenapu
Cast: Chetan, Meghana Raj, Raj Vardhan
Director: M Kumaresh
Rating: 3/5
When director M Kumaresh decided to remake the Marathi film Duniyadari, he might have been thinking of taking it easy. He seems to have made no extra effort while directing this remake; his movie is so faithful to the original that it has even retained the surnames from the original. Narrating the tale of love and friendship set in the 1980s, Kumaresh’s movie lacks in freshness usually associated with a college story. The movie has the production quality of a theatrical production.
Narrated by Meghana Raj, the story revolves around Shreyas Bahadhur (Chetan Kumar) who enrolls in a college on the insistence of his mother. He finds a friend in Daya Shankar Patil (Raj Vardhan), a rival in Sainath Rao (Yash Shetty) and lover in Sruthi Urs (Meghana Raj), who plays a medical student who does not reciprocate to his feelings. Then there is Meenakshi (Sushmita Joshi), a police officer’s daughter who is head over heels for Shreyas, thus creating a love triangle. The surprise element comes when Sruthi announces her marriage with Sai. What lies in Sruti’s destiny and how she leads her life is Noorondu Nenapu, ending with an unexpected climax.
It is not just the slow paced making of the film, there are other loopholes. The film lacks local nativity, and except for the costumes, the characterisation, and the fiat car, all other resources do not even remotely lend a sense of the 80s. The saving grace is the casting. Chetan gets into the character of Shreyas and shines, while Meghana Raj needs applause for her character transformation. Sushmita Joshi and Archana lend good support. Raj Vardhan, featuring in his first film, as Chetan’s friend, is impressive.
The highlight of Noorondu Nenapu is the background score created by Gagan Baderiya, who has also composed the musical tracks, but SK Rao’s picturisation does not hold up to the 80s period.
Noorondu Nenapu does try to take you back to college, but ends up with a slow baked story of love and friendship between youngsters which has its own advantage and disadvantage.