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Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Achuvinthe Amma (2005) - Malyalam Movie Review

Ranking: 4.5/5

Cast: Meera Jasmine, Urvashi, Sunil
Director: Sathyan Anthikad
Music: Ilayaraja


I have to tell you that I do not watch many Malayalam movies more because I do not find company to watch them with and they are not easily accesible to me...But this time a friend of mine and I decided to let the rest of the gang hang out and we saw this movie and I do not regret it one bit. It is a great movie with a simple story, amazing direction, acting, screenplay, music, etc. It seemed perfect and directors from other languages should learn from Malayalam movies what quality really is! But unfortunately at least for Tamil and Telugu movies movies of such genre will only run in B grade theaters and will not be considered a commercial movie. I wish both the taste of people as well as of the directors will change for the better.

The story: Achu aka Ashwathi (Meera) is Vanaja's (Urvashi) daughter and they both live together with the absence of a male in their life. Achu is a civil engineer and she gets employed in a very good firm close to her house. Vanaja has sustained her family of two working hard as an LIC agent. Achu does not want to question her mom about her father trying not to bother her mother. They are very happy and carry on more like friends than mom and daughter.

Fate makes Achu and Vanaja meet Emanuel John aka Ejo (Sunil), an advocate also running on odd jobs trying to make some money on the side. Vanaja warns Achu about falling in love with Ejo which inevitably happens. Vanaja is very unhappy to hear about this but on Achu's persistence goes with Ejo to meet his parents. Where Ejo introduces them to five tombstones in a grave yard. Ejo explains that his whole family commited mass suicide leaving him to be the only survivor.

Vanaja is very sad but on returning back home tells Ejo that she is not happy about Achu and Ejo marrying. She had always hoped that Achu might marry into a big family but since Ejo was alone she was afraid of who would take care of Achu should something happen to Ejo. Ejo understands this and walks out of Achu's life.

Achu is very unhappy with Vanaja's question and asks her mother who her father is and why she was imposing her whims on her when she has been so understanding of her feelings. Vanaja refuses to explain her stance further and Achu leaves the house and tries to survive staying with friends for a few days. Ejo is very stern at obeying the wishes of Vanaja and refuses to be anything more than a friend to Achu and constantly tries to convince her to go home. Angry, optionless, and homeless now, Achu tries to commit suicide which she survives and she is admitted in a hospital. Ejo brings Vanaja over to visit Achu and Achu refuses to talk to her. On her way out she explains her story to Ejo and leaves...amazing climax...watch the movie.

Like I said at the very beginning of this post...This is a great movie and a must watch. Viewable with family and friends and very enjoyable story.

4 comments:

Scoot said...

first timer in here and glad I caught this post.was thinking of renting a movie and was not sure what to with my sunday.
should look around for this title since you have a wonderful review written on it
ps- profile pic is awesome :)

Anu Russell said...

Hey thanks for stopping by Maya...And be sure to check back in for more reviews of the movies I watched recently.

Thanks for your comment on my pic :)

Hareesh said...

I did not know you write reviews for movies and that too for a Mallu movie.

Anu Russell said...

Hareesh,
I prefer to watch movies in as many languages as possible so that I can have a better perspective to compare and contrast them :)

And yes watching movies is my passion and writing reviews is a part of it...