Directed by debutant director Vivek Soni and produced under Karan Johar’s Dharmatic Entertainment, ‘Meenakshi Sunderashwar’ is a story about a new age married couple- Meenakshi (Sanya Malhotra) and Sundareshwar (Abhimanyu Dasaani) and the struggles they go through in a long distance relationship.
The lead couple are named after Goddess Meenakshi & Lord Sundareshwar respectively, also the name of a famous temple in Madurai which is where this story begins.
Meenakshi is a bold and confident business administration graduate from a traditional middle class Tamilian family in Madurai. She wants to make a big difference working for a small firm while Sundareshwar is a simple and under confident guy who wants to do something on his own rather than joining his family’s saree business. He’s an engineer who loves coding and describes it as an art. Both of them are way different from each other. For instance, Meenakshi is a huge Rajnikant fan whereas Sundareshwar finds them boring.
Twist in the story comes when Sundareshwar has to leave to report for a job in Bengaluru the very next day of their arranged marriage and hence begins the ups and downs of a long distance relationship. Sundar hides his relationship status and doesn’t let Meenakshi to come and meet him in Bengaluru as his new company boss only wants single people in his team and Sundar does not want to miss this hard earned opportunity.
While Sundar is trying to hide his married status for the sake of livelihood, we also witness to Meenakshi’s struggles as a daughter-in-law. Even though it was the first time she was living in a joint family she was respectful and loving towards her in-laws. But she didn’t get the same love in return as her father in law stopped her from doing a job and even her love & loyalty towards Sundar is questioned.
How Meenakshi & Sundar navigate these pitfalls in their relationship & whether they are able to salvage their marriage at all is what forms the rest of the story. Sanya and Abhimanyu make a beautiful couple. The cute and adorable moments between them will definitely make your heart go awwww.
In terms of performances, Sanya Malhotra and Abhimanyu Dasaani fill the frame with much warmth. While Sanya Malhotra portrays Meenakshi beautifully & breathes relatability into her character with each little gesture, Abhimanyu too is wonderful. This is his second movie after ‘Mard ko Dard Nahi Hota’ and no doubt he has done a good job in portraying the various shades of Sundareshwar. The other performance that stands out is of Sundar’s brother Manoj Mani Mathew who adds to the humour quotient of the film. The supporting cast featuring Archana Iyer, Ritika Atul Shohtri, Shivkumar Subramaniam, among others lend a good support.
Music by Justin Prabhakaran’s is the perfect thing to be playing in the background, be it the wedding track ‘Mann Kesar Kesar’, the party song ‘Vaada Machaney’ or the heartbreaking compostion ‘Ratti Ratti Reza Reza’, all the songs go very well with the movie. Debojeet Ray has done excellent cinematography and has made it extensively hard to get one’s eyes off the screen. The screenplay by Soni and Aarsh Arora is decent as well.
The first half of the film is highly entertaining whereas the second part is quite lengthy and dragging. However, all things considered, ‘Meenakshi Sundareshwar’ is a good watch with a refreshing story.
You can catch ‘Meenakshi Sundareshwar’ on Netflix.
