X & Y review: A soulful symphony of birth, belonging and becoming
X & Y(3 / 5)
An allegorical and symbolic drama, X & Y opens not with a face, but a voice — the 'Mother of the Universe', instructing a soul to descend to Earth and find a story. In doing so, she gives us one: An unborn soul, eager to live, begs the creator to send it to Earth. He’s been given a mission: to find and unite his future parents to earn his birth.
Cast: D Satya Prakash, Brinda Acharya, Atharva Prakash, Ayaana, Harini Shreekanth, Doddanna, Veena Sunder, Dharmanna Kadur, and Sai Krishna
Director: D Satya Prakash
But this isn’t a biology lesson. This is Satya Prakash’s playground, where philosophy wears the mask of myth, and science becomes a doorway to the divine.
Introducing Kreede (Satya Prakash), an auto-ambulance driver with emotional honesty and quiet humour, and all he wants is to see people smile. Along with his sister (Harini) and brother-in-law (Sunder Veena), he has landed at the Adam & Eve Matrimony Centre, looking for a bride Through a twist of fate, Kreede encounters a beggar. Is he really a beggar, a divine child, or a madman? We don’t know. He has survived death only because a soul entered his body. Now a mysterious soul in human form, he is given a makeover, cladded in a 'Happy Birthday' t-shirt, and calls himself Jeeva.
We are also introduced to Asha (Aayana), a woman with a heartbreaking past, visiting a clinic run by Kreede’s brother-in-law. Her story resonates with the pain of many women denied love, dignity, and choice.
Enter Krupa (Brinda Acharya), a bride-to-be caught in a marriage arranged more by horoscope than heart. Her silence is a quiet rebellion against patriarchy. Her journey toward independence parallels Jeeva’s search for belonging — for a mother not just in the biological sense, but in the emotional and spiritual one.
The narrative orbits Jeeva’s quest for a mother, a symbolic journey of origin, identity, and meaning. Satya Prakash, more seeker than filmmaker, explores deep questions: What does it mean to be born? Who is worthy of being a parent? And is it worth being born into a world filled with pain?
Arriving on Earth, he’s confronted by pain, conflict, and human complexity. The world he once dreamed of feels cold, chaotic, and unkind. Will he feel worth it to be born, or disillusioned, he longs to return?
In Rama Rama Re, Satya examined redemption through a death row escapee. In Ondalla Eradalla, he followed a lost child in a divided world. In X & Y, he goes even further back, to the yearning before life itself. And even when Jeeva finds potential parents, he must ask: Is this the world I want to be born into?
The film’s boldness lies in merging science with humanity. Chromosomes become metaphors. A soul waits in limbo. A smile blooms like a flower. This is cinema, which is surreal, layered, and philosophical.
Brinda Acharya as Krupa is the emotional anchor, poised between restraint and revelation. Satya Prakash as Kreede brings warmth and grounded sincerity. And Jeeva, portrayed by young Atharva Prakash, channels raw innocence and wide-eyed wonder with Chaplin-esque grace.
From the comedic Reddy at Adam & Eve Matrimony to the wise grandfather (Doddanna) of Krupa, orphanage caretakers, and old age home residents, every supporting character are on point, and add to the film’s texture. These characters are not just people; they are symbols of society’s forgotten, waiting, and yearning souls.
A special mention to the music by Koushik Harsha, whose emotionally immersive score, as in Satya Prakash’s earlier works, balances whimsy and tragedy. The cinematography by Lavith treads a fine line between gritty realism and fleeting surrealism. While the visuals don’t always match the script’s metaphysical ambition, there are moments of striking grace and abstraction. The film is structured around Jeeva’s four-day quest to find a mother, a unique frame that lends shape to its abstract journey.
However, the narrative occasionally meanders. Some subplots, like Asha’s backstory or a coercive boy-girl eloping, feel either underdeveloped or tonally disconnected from the core theme. That said, the film surprises with a soul portrayed through a youth, Atharva Prakash, through whom we get to explore the emotional depth souls may carry before birth.
Still, X & Y is never preachy. It handles complex themes — caste, arranged marriage, orphanhood, generational neglect, and the sanctity of birth — with symbolic richness and emotional empathy.
Satya Prakash deserves full credit for crafting an imaginative premise. A soul waiting to be born, seeking love, contemplating chromosomes, and questioning existence itself. It’s not always seamless, but it’s brave, poetic, and achingly human.
X & Y, a story of birth and belonging, is for those who welcome bold cinema, for anyone who has ever asked, “Why was I born?” and seeks answers that are part science, part soul.
And in the end, that is what Satya Prakash wants everybody to take back from X & Y: "Let every parent look after their child like they would a flower. And let no soul, no child, be left uncared for."