For a typical family in India, Vamshodharaka might click. But typicality had no place for for quite a while, which is why the story penned by Chandrachar Kumar seems like an idea stranded on an island in an ocean of opportunity.
Kumar as well as the makers have tried to model it on classical family dramas. The effort is laudable, but it does little more than rehashing the existing body of work in the genre and shows that old remade is not always gold.
Director Aditya Chikkanna has sprinkled elements of love, justice, honesty, social unity and rural development.
The story revolves around a the life of a farmer, Vishwanath aka Vishwa (Vijay Raghavendra), who tries to inspire others in his village to follow more organic methods. The film goes through a varied see-saw of emotions, but its failing is the director’s pursuit to rehash a few stories of an older period of cinema. The plot, however, holds attention with its rustic flavour and the old-fashioned family tale template. But the approach leaves much wanting.
Vijay Raghavendra is a perfect fit for his role, definitely inspired by Dr Rajkumar’s character Rajeeva in Bangarada Manushya and other such films. Meghana Raj makes for a pretty picture as the girl-next-door. Supporting them are actors like Rangayana Raghu, Lakshmi, Vinay Prasad, Sreenivas Murthy, Naveen Krishna and Sadhu Kokila. The director could have rid the film of irrelevant comedy to make it slicker.
P K H Das’s cinematography and V Manohar’s music captures the flavour of rural life splendidly. Older films based on subjects like these often present themselves on TV. It might still be worth a trip to the movie halls for the audience who loves watching village-based stories with new faces.