Dharmatic Entertainment’s Meenakshi Sundareshwar is the story of a young couple in a long-distance marriage. Meenakshi (Sanya Malhotra) and Sundareshwar (Abhimanyu Dassani) live in Madurai and get married quite by chance. Although Sundareshwar is an engineer, he is jobless. Soon after marriage, he gets a job as an intern in an IT company in Bangalore. While Meenakshi continues to live with Sundareshwar’s joint family in Madurai, Sundareshwar moves to Bangalore where he can’t call his wife because it’s the company policy to hire only bachelors as interns. The long-distance marriage begins to crumble as cracks develop in their relationship. What happens thereafter?
Aarsh Vora and Vivek Soni have written an interesting story which has a number of enjoyable light moments. What’s more, the South Indian flavour is well presented without making the characters caricaturish. The duo’s screenplay has very realistic situations and problems, because of which the drama becomes relatable and believable. Yes, the pace is slow due to which the drama gets slack at times, but overall, it is interesting and engaging. The climax (app made by Sundareshwar) looks a bit contrived. Aarsh Vora and Vivek Soni’s dialogues are very good and enjoyable.
Sanya Malhotra lives the role of Meenakshi. She sinks into the character and comes out a winner. It is actually a delight to watch her extremely natural performance. Abhimanyu Dassani is endearing as Sundareshwar. He is easy in front of the camera. Purnendu Bhattacharya shines in the role of Mani. Varun Shashi Rao is pretty impactful as Meenakshi’s close friend, Ananthan. Sukhesh Arora is brilliant as Sundareshwar’s eccentric boss. Nivedita Bhargava makes her presence amply felt as Attai. Manoj Mani Mathew has his moments as Vaman. Shivkumar Subramaniam leaves a mark as Thatha. Komal Chhabria does well as Suhasini. Archana Iyer is effective as Poojitha. Ritika Atul Shrotri makes her mark as Mukai. Kalp Shah is lovely as little Rasu. Saurabh Sharma lends fine support as the tutor. Sonali Sachdev leaves a good mark as Meenakshi’s mother. Chetan Sharma (as Sai Kumar), Khuman Nongyai (as Diganta), Danish Sood (as PVR), Mahesh Pillai (as Ganapathy), Jyoti Subhash (as the old lady in the train) and the others provide fantastic support. Others are adequate.
Vivek Soni’s direction is of a good standard. For a maiden attempt, Soni has done a truly fine job. His narrative style is easy and he has made the proceedings very real. Some of his directorial touches are fantastic. Meenakshi romancing Sundareshwar’s shirt is an instance in point. Justin Prabhakaran has composed an authentic South Indian flavoured music score. All the songs have a certain appeal about them. Lyrics (by Raj Shekhar) are very nice. Vijay A. Ganguly’s choreography goes with the mood of the film. Justin Prabhakaran’s background music is fantastic. Debojeet Ray’s cinematography is wonderful. Action and stunt scenes (by Vikram Dahiya) are well-composed. Aparna Sud’s production designing is of a good standard. Prashanth Ramachandran’s editing is sharp.
On the whole, Meenakshi Sundareshwar is a cute entertainer for the families.
Released on 5-11-’21 on Netflix.
