Ananda Thandavam- A one sided love story not well adapted

Disclaimer- Spoiler Alert
Though Indians migrating to the U.S temporarily for education or work and then staying on permanently has been happening for ages, in the last two decades the phenomenon has been on the increase. In places like TN & AP especially the exodus has been all the more severe due to the number of engineers working especially in the software sector. And of course in the matrimonial market the U.S employed men always found a good demand back home in India. So why am I writing about all this here? Well one of the more anticipated Tamil films in recent times is Ananda Thandavam. And why wouldn’t it be anticipated- after all its based on late writer Sujatha’s well known novel- Pirivom Sandipom,produced by Aascar Ravichandran ( the producer with the Midas Touch), directed by A.R.Gandhi Krishna whose previous venture –Chellame was a reasonably good movie and stars the hot & happening Tammanah ( after Padikathavan & Ayan ).
At the very outset let me inform that I’m guilty of not having read the novel, but I know the synopsis of the same as it was very popular having been serialized in the well known Tamil magazine- Ananda Vikatan. So while the novel very well made sense at the time it was written as it gave an insight into the typical syndrome of a prospective bride’s family wanting an U.S based groom, the travails of a an Indian student in the U.S etc, the very relevance seems slightly watered down today. Going on to the movie, Ananda Thandavam begins reasonably well enough. One sees the hero ( newcomer Siddharth ) trying to commit suicide by jumping down from a waterfall somewhere close to Ambasamudram in Tenkasi and we know that it’s a case of love failure as evident from what is seen.
From then on the movie goes back into the flash back mode and you see Raghupathy an engineering graduate trying his luck at getting a job, returning to his father’s (Kitty is back after a long hiatus) place. His father is an Asst.Engineer in a beautiful reservoir and the new Chief Engineer has just moved in with his family which includes his mischievous daughter Madhumita (Tamannah). Now within no time you see Raghu falling in love with Madhu & surprisingly her family is only too glad to accept Raghu as Madhu’s groom & even get them engaged. All the while Raghu’s dad is suspicious of the whole thing, but Raghu is too much in love to bother. Trouble comes in the form of Radhakrishna ( Rishi ) a rich man from the U.S & now Madhu’s family breaks off the engagement with Raghu & instead fix her wedding with Radha.
So Raghu makes a suicide attempt but is saved instead. Now his father advices him to fight back in life & advices him to go the U.S & study further . So Raghu goes to the U.S & enrolls in NYU. One day he bumps into Madhu once again & he is now confused as to how to take things forward. There’s also Ratna (Rukmini who was appreciated in Bommalattam) who is interested in Raghu. So what happens to the 3 of them? Does Raghu’s love succeed? Or is Ratna the one to fall lucky? All this is what the rest of the film tries to tell us.
While the camera work by Jeeva Sankar is truly amazing with some brilliant visuals captured especially in the 1st half and the music by G.V.Prakash is also more than decent, the same cannot be said about the screenplay and the performances. The director seems to have made an attempt to stick as close to the novel and hence in the process slipped considerably in maintaining a tight control over the screenplay. The resultant story hardly looks contemporary and the characters especially Madhumita’s character comes across as someone very irritating- at times naïve and at times cunning. But still Tamnnah has done a decent job as Madhumita, Rukmini as Ratna is good in a brief role while Siddharth is strictly ok. Kitty is the best of the whole lot.
For any love story to succeed, one needs to connect to the on screen romance. Here in the first place –there’s actually no romance. It’s a one sided love that Raghu has for Madhumita (she never actually loves him) and similarly Ratna also feels the same for Raghu. So with no real romance that you connect to on screen, it’s really tough to appreciate the end product all the more.
While the movie had raised a lot of expectations, at the end it comes out as a half baked attempt. Probably not all literary works can make great films and this is certainly a good example for the same. In a recent interview director Gandhi Krishna had talked about how he did Chellame only to be noticed in the industry and that he wants to make realistic movies like Ananda Thandavam. My only answer to that is that it’s probably better to make a commercial movie like Chellame rather than an artistic ‘misadventure’ like Ananda Thandavam. Looks like Aascar Ravichandran has missed the bus this time.
Note- The movie has also been dubbed & released in Telugu by the same name.

Originally published in PFC-check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/ananda-thandavam-a-one-sided-love-story-not-well-adapted/