Anegan: Intriguing, sincere and romantic

The film showcases the unique place Dhanush has come to occupy in our cinema. He does not sell the face that launched a thousand ships nor a body that counts six packs. It is a lean look far removed from what you associate with normal norms of success. Yet he lights up the film when he is around and brings on board an indefinable endearing facet. So is it with ‘Anekudu’.

The tale is about a love story that is bound to abort from the very beginning. It moves from one lifetime to many and the lovers are jinxed till box-office requirements step in and get the lead pair together, but not before the villain promises to return and haunt. Thus preparing grounds for ‘Anekudu 2.’

The filmmaker KV Anand decides to tell a love story of a pair that always fails to make it and yet come back time after time, fall in love, have societal issues and end up with tragedy and add to the eternal tale that true love fails as often as it succeeds.

Three births and our love pair are still courting and hoping to get married. It all starts in Rangoon, Burma when the heroine (Amyra Dastur) is saved miraculously by the local farmer who makes up with intensity and dare what he lacks in looks and money.

For her it is love at first sight and is surely unacceptable to rich dad and police officer (Mukesh Tiwari). As they defy and literally are on the run, the police bullets get the better of their love story. Fast forward to the present where Madhu (Amyra Dastur) is visiting the shrink and when wired goes about recalling the details of her earlier incarnation.

The doc believes this is just a product of being overworked at the gaming company where the best designs have to be in place in the market to satisfy the seemingly nice boss Kiran (Karthik). Dr Radhika (Lena) is not only listening to the script of love in the past life but also doling out drugs and is thus abetting Kiran in dubiously getting his staff charged at their work stations.

Madhu, like in the past, is again saved from a lurking fatal accident at the elevator in the office by Ashwin (Dhanush), the new recruit. In all the lives, it is the lady who is proactive of the brewing love tale and the guy ever hesitant, based largely on his not-so attractive looks in juxtaposition invariably with poverty.

It is, however, the Madhu-Ashwin that pans out before you with cross references to some more lifetimes and tragedies and the most recent when a competing suitor gets the better of the lovers and gets the then police officer and now Commissioner Gopinath ( Aashish Vidyarthi) to believe that the lovers even killed his colleague.

The past visits to haunt the memory of the lady and leaves the guy blissfully ignorant at all points in time. Anand manages to build the story to a high but resorts to clichés and predictable routed formulae for his climax. In fact, the climax and the unveiling of the villainy in the final tale is the most unimpressive part of the film. It also manages to take away apart of the grip that the tale thus far had created.

The cast is sincere. Most of them-- be it Karthik, Ashish Vidyarthi or Mukesh Tiwari or the rest, they bring just the right element of sincerity and do not go overboard. Amyra Dastur carries the dazed look that goes well with the demands of the script and helps take the story ahead. The film’s crew too helps-- especially the cinematography by Om Prakash warrants specific mention.

In the final analysis the film, however, belongs really to Dhanush. Remove him and everything could fall like a pack of cards. He has an enthusiastic understated dynamism that electrifies a script that beyond a point is lacking in credibility. The challenge to take such a script and wean the viewer from familiar questions of logic is the challenge and Dhanush is more than up to it. Like the title--he sure is multi dimensional.

Film Name: Anekudu

Cast : Dhanush, Amyra Dastur and Karthik

Direction : KV Anand

Genre : Romance (action)

Likes : Dhanush

Dislikes : The climax

By L Ravichander