Naa Manasukemaindi Movie Reviews

Many love stories hit the Telugu screen in the past and the trend continued at present and would also be there in future, because love is an eternal fresh subject. Debut director Sriram scripted a love story which is different from routine. Normally, love stories with college backdrop would have a quarrel between the hero and heroine in one or two scenes and they unite later, the story takes a twist with either elders or some villain intervening in their love affair. In this film, the heroine loses her heart and the hero continued to refuse her love till the climax. It is like a parody to Sukumar's film 'Arya' with Allu Arjun as hero, in which the director coined the slogan 'feel my love'.

Siddhu (Paramesh) never believes in love. For him, girls love boys only if he is rich and could take them around to hotels, pubs and films. After his purse turns empty, they don't even look at him. Gita (Sindhu Tulani) is a down to earth girl. She believes in fate and had a strong feel that nothing can stop if something has to reach us. Once Siddhu saves Gita when she met with an accident by donating blood.

However, Gita doesn't know him as she was unconscious. However, she feels that there was some attachment with him as God doesn't send him to save her. After some time, Gita meets Siddhu and loses her heart totally. Both of them become good friends as their mindset was quite similar. On Valentine's day, Gita proposes to Siddhu. Being a person, who never believes in love, Siddhu refuses her. But with the help of Siddhu's father (Naresh), Gita tries to come close to him and tries to impress him in several ways but fails. In order to put a full stop to her advances, Siddhu brings a girl saying he is going to marry her. Even after their engagement, Gita keeps moving around him. When a goon makes a murder attempt, Gita saves Siddhu and the latter serves her in the hospital, making everyone believe that he is loving her. Did Siddhu really love her? Did Gita was able to marry her? What makes him to realise that love is for each other and not exclusively for men? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

Sindhu Tulani excelled in her performance. She had got a lot of chance to perform in this film and she utilised the opportunity well. She gave the impression of a girl in the next door in traditional dresses and also looked gorgeous in modern outfits. She showed different emotions like childish, romantic, loving and good at sentiment scenes too.

Paramesh, though a novice, showed some ease in dances, but he needs to improve his glamour. He needs to improve a lot in his body language.

Naresh also gave a very good performance as a person who is young at heart. Though appeared in a couple of scenes in the climax, Nagababu showed a matured performance. Comedy by Brahmanandam, Chitram Sreenu, and Ali is average.

When it comes to behind the screen, debutant director Sriram was sloppy workmanship in certain scenes, which could have been brought out well.

The director should have avoided lengthy dialogues to the hero and instead given him simple one-liners which are the order of the day. The not so gripping screenplay tested the patience of audiences. Despite a good storyline, the director failed to mould it effectively on the celluloid.

Music by RP Patnaik is just okay though a couple of songs were melodious. The item song 'Olammo... Ori Nayano...' shot on Mumaith Khan was remixed from an old Telugu hit song.

But for Sindhu Tulani there is nothing great to talk about the movie. Vasu's cinematography is okay in capturing the beauty of foreign locales and in showing the heroine slim in some scenes. Production values of Viswa Sai Arts are good.

CAST: Paramesh, Sindhu Tulani, Chitram Sreenu, Naresh, Nagababu, Ramaprabha, Brahmanandam, Ali, Lakshmipati, Uttej, Junior Relangi, Ram Jagan, Kadambari Kiran, Tirupati Prakash, Ravali, Archana, Mounika, Silpa, Mumaith Khan, and others.

CREDITS: Dialogues €“ Ramaswamy, Lyrics €“ Peddada Murthy, Chaitanya Prasad, Sangu Balaji, Suddala Ashokteja, Music €“ RP Patnaik, Choreography €“ Prem Rakshit, Break Sreenu, Nixon, Camera €“ Vasu, Editing €“ Nandamuri Hari, Action €“ Nandu, Producers €“ Kalavakuri Ankababu and Somaraju Purushottama Rao, Story, screenplay and direction €“ Sriram.

Banner: Viswa Sai Arts

Released on: April 25, 2008