The third wave of the coronavirus pandemic in India has resulted in the postponement of several big-budget film releases.
The release of SS Rajamouli’s highly anticipated film RRR, is postponed and the makers are yet to announce a new release date. Prabhas and Pooja Hegde‘s Radhe Shyam that was scheduled to hit theatres on January 14, will now release at a later date. So will Ajith Kumar‘s Valimai, which was earlier scheduled to release in theatres a day ahead of Radhe Shyam.
Cinemas across the country are either shutting down or operating at 50% capacity owing to the Covid-related restrictions.
Films that previously released in theatres and continue their run include Pushpa, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and 83. The audience has been selective despite the lack of content. While 83 failed to draw footfall, the Marvel superhero flick and the Telugu-language film raked in huge numbers. No Way Home has collected over $1 billion worldwide, and has become the third Hollywood film in India to cross the Rs 200 crore mark. Pushpa, meanwhile, became the seventh South-Indian film ever to make it to the 200 crore club.
Silverscreen India brings to you, a compilation of reviews of films that released in cinemas last week:
The Girish AD-directorial revolves around a fresher college student, Sharanya, who moves out of her home to pursue engineering in Thrissur, and the shortcomings she faces in a bid to cope with her surroundings. It features actors Anaswara Rajan in the titular role, while Arjun Asokan, Sneha Babu, Mamitha Baiju, and Naslen play the supporting roles.
For Aswathy Gopalakrishnan of Silverscreen India, while the film comes with a terrific former half, edited to a delicious rhythm, splashed with a great sense of humour, it ends as a thoroughly underwhelming work, thanks to the screenplay’s shortsightedness.
“Super Sharanya’s Achilles Heel is a poorly-written romantic track on which Girish pins the future of his heroine,” Gopalakrishnan writes. She refers to the shift in focus from the trials and trebulations of an adolescent, to the protagonist’s reduction to a meek lover that fails to carry the pace with which the film started.
Goutham VS of The Indian Express notes that the film does not bother to explain the title, and why Sharanya’s character is called super. He points to a lack of character development when the plot shifts to the protagonist’s romantic life.
SR Praveen of The Hindu reflected similar sentiments as the other two reviewers, and writes, “while the first half is quite pacy, with a good dose of humour, the script meanders aimlessly later on, not even justifying the run-time of 164 minutes.”
He calls the climax disappointing for retracting to the typical old-school romantic drama.
All the three reviewers compared the film with Girish’s debut, Thaneer Mathan Dinangal, that also focused on the adolescent mind and behaviour. While the shift from the male (in the first film) to the female perspective (in Super Sharanya) is lauded, they criticise the film for downgrading the plot development by shifting its focus.
Directed by debutante Aswin Raam, Anbarivu features musician-actor Hiphop Tamizha Adhi, Kashmira Pardeshi, Shivani Rajashekar, among others, in prominent roles.
Anbu and Arivu are twins, separated as infants. Anbu stays with his mom and grandpa, growing up rugged. Arivu lives with his father in Canada. Incidents force the twins to switch family. Their attempts of reuniting their family forms the premise, according to IMDb‘s synopsis of the film.
Vishal Menon of Film Companion, notes that the film suffers from the saviour complex, and is hardly any different from Adhi’s last release Sivakumarin Sabadham.
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He writes “In Anbarivu, there’s hardly any difference between Anbu or Arivu or the Aadhi from the films he’s done before. Accents come and go and even laboured gags of a Maduraikaaran in Canada offers nothing new.”
For Ashameera Aiyappan of Firstpost, the film suffers from issues of execution. She highlighted the tokenistic existence of female characters in the film.
Although multiple films have faced delayed their release, some others might stick to the scheduled release dates. Malayalam films like Salute, Thuramukham, Hridayam, and Naaradhan are scheduled to release on January 14, 20, 21, and 27, respectively.