'Manasuku Nachindi' movie review: Story without a soul
Manasuku Nachindi; Director: Manjula Gattamaneni
Cast: Sundeep Kishan, Amyra Dastur, Priyadarshe, Tridha Choudhary, Nasser, Adith Arun, Abhay Bethiganti; Rating: /5
Hailing from a filmy family, the debutant director, Manjula Ghattamaneni is expected to be profound in her direction. She proves the popular phrase, ‘expectations lead to disappointment,’ right in a loud and clear tone. Manasaku Nacchindi (things that our heart love) is deficient of a beating heart. The non-lucrative script evokes disappointment like an avalanche as the movie loses its momentum.
Suraj (Sundeep Kishan) and Nitya (Amyra Dastur) are best friends, often misunderstood as a couple. Their families decide to get them married, assuming they are madly in love. They elope to Goa to flight from their marriage and discover themselves. They live together in an earthy yet plush guest house in Goa, amidst untouched irresistible nature.
While Nitya turns into a meditation teacher, Suraj is a directionless, blithe-attitude guy, who thinks he is a good photographer, until he gets a reality check by his friends. Post the discussion with his friends, Suraj finds his path to satori (enlightenment) by spending time in nature. All it took is a silent pond in Goa to make him attain the moment of epiphany, that his heart is in nature and his forte is nature photography. Suraj becomes a responsible guy overnight and redeems his fall outs by following his heart. Nitya falls in love with him.
But Suraj is in love with Nikki (Tridha Choudhary). Nitya lives in a denial and thinks that he is in love with her and waits for him to realise that he loves her and not Nikki. In the course of events, Nitya learns that Surja is truly in love with Nikki and not her. The heartbroken Nitya accepts Abhay’s (Adith Arun) proposal to marry. Nasser, grandfather to both Nitya and Suraj agrees to get them married to their respective loved ones.
A day before the wedding, during a meditation game, Suraj discovers that he is in love with Nitya. Too late to confess, Suraj cries his heart out with regret. Ultimately they get together.
The idea of taking off on a journey to finding inner-self in Goa sounds interesting until a point, where they show the path to it. Meditation is all about doing what we love sounds like music to ears, and that music turns into noise in seconds when they show Suraj discovering himself just by looking at a butterfly and sleeping near waterfalls.
He becomes an international photographer just by a few clicks of nature in Goa. If quest to finding our inner-self and discovering our uniqueness was this elementary, there wouldn’t be any stress busters or therapy places. In a world, where society is constantly trying to change our heart and thoughts, following our heart and chasing our passion and soul-searching is a tough task that involves a lot of gut, heart and spine. But the movie doesn’t dwell deep.
The intense words in their dialogue are doesn’t reflect in their actions. The superficiality echoes in every scene. The exotic, untouched locales of Goa, the sartorial elegance manages to capture our attention, while the story and screenplay are busy boring us. The juvenile love triangle, shallow execution of sagacious concept makes the movie fall flat. The actors in the movie do manage to do a reasonably good job but the bizarre loopholes in the story overpower their screen presence. Music and cinematography score good grades in their respective categories. Priyadarshi’s and Abhay Bethiganti’s talent to tickle the funny bone was underused.
Bottom line: A story that lost its soul in translation, metaphorically. An hour at a mind-therapy class or a walk in the KBR park on a Sunday morning will leave you with a better experience.
WATCH TRAILER
— Purnima Sriram
purnima@newindianexpress.com
@iyer_purnima