Only few films have made their way to the theatres this week ahead of November which is to bring audiences a bounty of Diwali releases.
Next week is expected to see major digital as well as in theatrical releases such as, Rajinikanth‘s Annaatthe, Marvel’s Eternals, Dulquer Salman‘s Kurup, and the Akshay Kumar’s Sooryavanshi.
Currently, films like film Doctor, and the Bengali film Golondaaj, continue to be screened in cinemas and elicit good responses.
Silverscreen India brings to you, a roundup of reviews of films which have released online this week:
Oh Manapenne (Disney+ Hotstar)
The Tamil remake of the 2016 Telugu film Pelli Choopulu, features actors Harish Kalyan and Priya Bhavani Shankar in lead roles.
Directed by Kaarthikk Sundar, Oh Manapenne revolves around overachiever Shruthi and an underachiever Karthik, whose paths cross, and they decide to collaborate over a business venture. “With hearts at stake, will the partnership take-off or crash land?” reads the synopsis on Disney+ Hotstar.
For Sinndhuja of Silverscreen India, “In Oh Manappenne, the meeting of a man and a woman seems to have been preordained – as preordained as the Indian matchmaking network with its various filters would allow, anyway.” She adds that the remake could have been better as it seems to have directly taken inspiration from its original.
Recommended
Vishal Menon of Film Companion, reflects similar sentiments, and says that the film “will only leave you with even more respect for its original and its actors,” and calls it a boringly faithful remake.
While Praveen Sudevan of The Hindu, has not watched the original. He says “the film starts feeling contrived. Writing seems to be the prime suspect. There are oft-too-seen Tamil cinema character traits.”
However, he highlights Bhavani Shankar’s performance, as against the conventional female roles in Tamil cinema.
The film has a current IMDb rating of 7.7.
Heads and Tales
Heads and Tales on Zee5 is another film which has released this week. Featuring Suneel, Divya Sripada, Chandni Rao, and Srividya, among others, the film has been directed by Sai Krishna Enreddy, and written by Sandeep Raj. The story revolves around “three women, as they deal with tough times in their romantic relationships, they also learn to take control of their personal lives and stand up for themselves,” according to Zee5’s official synopsis.
For Ashutosh Mohan of Film Companion, the scattershot film has a philosophizing preamble with a weak pretext, that “manages to become an ordinary drama about two very different strangers helping each other solve their problems.”
Although with an IMDb rating of 7.6, the film has not garnered great reviews from the critics.
Bengali web series Indu has also released on Hoichoi. Featuring Ishaa Saha in the lead role, the story follows the life of Indu who enters a new stage of life after her marriage. Eventually, dark secrets that threaten her life come into the picture.