Wedding Gift is a bold take on the manipulation of Indian penal code sec 498 A, which was introduced to protect married women from being subjected to cruelty by the husband or his relatives. Director Vikram Prabhu’s directorial debut is a bitter take on certain laws and their flaws. Though it achieves its objective of creating awareness about the misuse of the law, it only does it in parts.
The film kickstarts with the release of Vilas Rao (Nishan Nanaiah), a pharmaceutical businessman, from prison, and goes on to tell the backstory of Vilas and his mother (Pavithra Lokesh). Living a disciplined life, Vilas falls for Akansha (Sonu Gowda) and expresses his love to her. Akanksha, who is open about feminist values, takes time to reciprocate.
However, Vilas manages to convince her, and the two tie the knot. But the marriage becomes a bane for Vilas when he gets to learn the real side of Akanksha and her motive. How he goes about finding justice is what the film is about. The film would have been powerful had it stayed to the point sans the melodrama. The second half, which is mostly set in a courtroom, is slow-paced.
Although he had a good story, Vikram fails to work on the various characters and extract the required performance from the actors. Also, the courtroom sequences lack intensity. Prema’s character as a defense lawyer should have been much more aggressive. Sonu Gowda playing a negative character has done a good job with dialogue delivery and body language.
Nishan Nanaiah has also put out a decent performance. As far as the music depart of the film, the songs do not make much impact. The cinematographer has also failed to make the courtroom scenes powerpacked. Overall, Wedding Gift does lead to discussions and opinions about certain laws implemented in the judiciary, but it also sports some obvious flaws.
WEDDING GIFT
Cast: Sonu Gowda, Nishan Nanaaiah, Prema, Achyuth Kumar, and Pavithra Lokesh
Director: Vikram Prabhu
Rating: 3 stars