Meenakshi Sundareshwar (2021) :
Movie Review -
We have seen lots of films made on long distance relationships in Bollywood but Meenakshi Sundareshwar is different for one big reason. Have we seen any film made on long distance relationship set in post marriage scenario? Probably No. That's where Meenakshi Sundareshwar is different and that's the most interesting thing about it. The story is a mix of modern thoughts of young generation and traditional features followed by a typical family, which makes it amusing sometimes but mostly boring.
The film is about newly married couple Sundareshwar (Abhimanyu Dassani) and Meenakshi (Sanya Malhotra) and their complex relationship torn by long distance bonding. Meenakshi and Sundar are in love but their personal ambitions somehow makes it difficult for them to live together. The screenplay looks stretched because the story does not have anything as big as to carry a long narrative of 140 minutes. The soul of the story was good enough to make a two hours film, but here those extra 40 minutes makes it lose the grip. Rest, there is nothing much wrong, nothing new either. The idea is loyal and sweet which makes it watchable but at the same time some vulgar, youth oriented jokes harms it.
The film is led by Abhimanyu and Sanya mostly because the supporting cast is too big to fit into long space. Abhimanyu Dassani looks good, i mean i didn't hate him much here. His language, the accent, those expresions in tense scenes everything seems reasonable. Sanya, on the other side, runs a riot of her own. That carefree and happy-go-lucky girl is very well played by her. You'll love her in those Thalaiva mimicry scenes and dance scenes. Like mentioned above, the supporting cast is too big but everyone does pretty enough according to roles and situations.
Meenakshi Sundareshwar has too many songs unnecessarily added in the final cut. Not that the songs are bad, they are decent but that hampers the pace of the film. Nevertheless, Justin Prabhakaran's music is good enough to play on your jukebox. The technical aspects of the film aren't noteworthy and viewing the film on small screen or mobile phone adds more to its lowering. What works in the film is simplicity of the character and the flow of storytelling. What it lacks is the pace and that little boost of intelligent writing in the conclusion part. The conflicts are outdated. The characters who are supposed to be matured behave immaturely and therefore all the conflicts look bad.
Director Vivek Soni has handled the script without making any big damages. To keep that natural flow of relationship was very much needed and he knew exactly what to do. However, he fails to do something new which makes this one a forgettable affair. As a whole, Meenakshi Sundareshwar is sweet but it has limits to its own lukewarm vision. They don't want cross the boundaries and make a film that will stand tall against mediocrity hence, fails to make an impact. It's still watchable and i think that's too much to ask from a dustbin called Netflix.
RATING - 5/10*
![Teaser [OV]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZDUyZmVmNWItNzU2Yy00NTBiLWIyMTItMTIyNzg1MDgwMzY0XkEyXkFqcGdeQWFuaW5vc2M@._V1_QL75_UX1000_CR0,0,1000,563_.jpg)
