| Turtle On A Hammock Films’ Listen… Amaya is the story of Leela Krishnamoorthy (Deepti Naval), a widow who lives with her free-spirited daughter, Amaya (Swara Bhaskar), and runs an offbeat library-cum-coffee shop. Leela finds a true soul-mate in Jayant Sinha alias Jazz (Farooque Shaikh), a retired photographer and a widower. Amaya also likes Jazz until she learns that her mother and he are planning to get married. Before she learns of their wedding plans, Amaya has committed to writing a book with illustrations and pictures to be contributed by Jazz.
Tension between Amaya and Jazz mounts. Alongside this, Amaya starts misbehaving with her mother for having considered marrying a second time. What happens then? Do Leela and Jazz get married? Or do they sacrifice their love for one another to keep Amaya happy? Geeta Singh and Avinash Kumar Singh’s story may be sensitive but it is a one-track tale so that the regular movie buff will find it too uni-dimensional for his liking. Their screenplay (with inputs from script supervisor Radhika Murthy) has sensitive moments but again, the fact that the film moves on one track only, will not find favour with the majority of the audience. In that sense, this one is a film more for the elitist audience or, rather, the festival circuit audience. Although the drama is sensitive, it never really tugs at the heart-strings of the viewers. This could be partly because of the nature of the story and partly because Amaya’s fears seem unfounded as they haven’t been established properly. The drama mostly moves in the same location (coffee shop and Leela’s house), adding to the monotony of the viewer. The climax is quite unusual and will not be appreciated by several among the class audience too. Dialogues, penned by Avinash Kumar Singh, Geeta Singh and Vikas Chandra, are very natural. Deepti Naval does a wonderful job and is as natural as natural can be. She underplays her character beautifully. Farooque Shaikh is also supremely realistic, getting into the skin of his character. Swara Bhaskar deserves kudos for portraying Amaya so excellently. She brings forth the predicament of Amaya very well. Amala Akkineni is good in a minuscule role (as Sujata). Siddhant Karnick is natural as Raghav but is not hero material. Oroon Das and Kriti Maria Pant lend reasonable support as Abhay and Devika. Ashok Sawhny (as publisher Khanna), Vidya Bhushan (as Rizwanbhai) and Viren Basoya (as Rizwanbhai’s son) fit the bill. Mihir Tandon, Vidushi Talwar, Shadab Khan and Dipika are okay as Amaya’s friends. Others are alright. Avinash Kumar Singh may have faltered in the choice of subject because it has very limited appeal but his direction is good. In spite of a very class-appealing story, he does manage to engage the viewers to an extent because of his reasonably-paced narration. Indraneel Hariharan’s music and Punam Hariharan’s lyrics are, at best, functional. Choreographers Longinus Fernandes and Charu Shankar don’t get much scope. Ramshreyas Rao’s camerawork is effective. Rakesh Yadav’s sets are nice. Geeta Singh’s editing is sharp. On the whole, Listen… Amaya may be a sensitive film but its box-office prospects are very bleak and not just because the awareness about the film and its release is almost completely absent. Released on 1-2-’13 at Inox (daily 1 show), Metro Big (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay by Turtle On A Hammock Films. Publicity: dull. Opening: very poor. …….Also released in Delhi-U.P. Opening was terribly low everywhere. |
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