Mitr: My Friend

This is a film made in Bharat but mostly in English. The film is about adjustment crisis in marriage and bringing up children in a foreign country.

This was the directorial debut of acclaimed South Indian actress Revathi and also won Shobana her second National Award after Manichitrathazhu.

Nasser also performs well as the balanced husband, the anchor in the family. The fulcrum of the film though is the daughter played by Preeti Vissa. Such a genuine and excellent portrayal of such a tough role. Preeti plays a daughter being brought up in a foreign land and hence unable to relate to the culture her mother tries to imbibe in her. She hence rebels and faces violent consequences of her mistakes.

Preeti was of the right age and hence I could play it from the heart, apart from her good looks and talent. Honestly, I became a fan and developed a crush on her. It was sorry to see her not appearing in any films after.

The ending of the film is a bit loose and disappointing and hence the drop in ratings and recommendations no doubt. This is otherwise a wake up call and a must watch for parents considering to bring up children in a foreign culture.

Mitr plays like a Seventh Heaven episode, a sweet domestic drama about an Indian mom and dad living in the US whose marriage is in trouble and who have a rebellious teenaged daughter. The film is set in the US and must've been made to appeal to the NRI (Non-Resident Indian) population. It was pitched to me as an exploration of the differences between Indian and US culture, but Lakshmi isn't so much an Indian woman as she is a repressed and overprotective mother (this sort of woman also exists in America as no doubt everywhere in the world), and it's a disservice to blame her attitudes on her cultural background.

Mitr is a very accessible Indian film, being 95% in English, relatively short (~100 minutes) and lacking the elaborate music-video numbers typical for a Bollywood product.

I found it ultimately unsatisfying, primarily because I watch Indian films in order to experience the color of exotic cultures and locales.

Mitr has a pretty good concept, interesting story, and a dynamic performance by Shobana who illuminates the screen whenever she is there which, luckily, is most of the movie. Nasir Abdullah, who plays her husband is OK but everyone else in the film seemed like they got their acting chops from Grade D late night cable TV. The daughter, friends, neighbors, -- everyone else -- gave stilted performances as if they were reading their lines. Fortunately, the daughter's performance got better towards the end of the film but the director should have elicited better performances from everyone unless that was their best and the casting crew would have to take the blame for not finding better actors. I would have preferred the over-acting of a lot of Hindi actors than some of the drivel and inane delivery that permeated this film.

Despite my misgivings of Mitr, I will still give it a 6 because of Shobana's performance and look forward to seeing her in other projects of better quality. Watching Shobana in action is worth enduring the cringe factor that occurs when watching the other actors.

This movie comprises of a beautiful love story , and i will not tell between whom , anyway, i really the early 2000zs backdrop with furnitures and everything else takes back in early 2000s era. It is a relaxing, calming and a feel good movie, where it tells about how life changes , sometimes up and sometimes down. The protagonist , is the main centre odf attraction, the film beautifully captures her pain, her sufferings, her anger, her frustration at the same time reflects on her strong personality and her emotional stability. The movie may seem a bit complicated in middle but actually it is a story of a heart connection.

'Mitr' attempts to portray the conflicts experienced by a traditional Indian mother living in the USA. She devotes her life to her family while her teenage daughter and ambitious husband grow increasingly independent.

Far from being a Bollywood production, I felt Mitr is closer to being a a high-school drama caught on film, based on its production quality. The lighting was flat and strange (candlelight dinner on a sunny afternoon?). Every line of dialogue was forced and overdone (clearly the director's decision). The audio was plagued by echo (too distant microphones?). The soundtrack was nonstop georgewinston-ey, with cricket chirps dubbed into the nighttime scenes. Mitr boasts "an all female crew," but the the quality of their work does not reflect well on female professionals in the film industry.

Mitr is partly redeemed by its strong character development, but it's poor production quality is so distracting that I did not enjoy watching it.