Godavari (A brief movie review)

Godavari is the first Telugu movie that I have watched.

A romantic musical, this movie revolves around Sriram (Sumanth) and Seeta (Kamalini Mukherjee) and a few other characters. But the way the screenplay goes, I don't think that we are supposed to give a sh*t about anyone other than Sriram and Seeta (except maybe for a dog).

Sriram, an idealist, intends to involve himself in politics in an effort to serve the public. He is also interested in marrying his cousin Raji (Neetu Chandra). Raji, on the other hand, wants to settle down with a practical guy who has a regular job. She rejects Sriram and gets engaged to some other dude. With Raji's marriage finalized, her wedding party undertakes a multi-day journey to the place of the wedding on a riverboat. Sriram, who would rather be elsewhere, reluctantly tags along as well.

Seeta wants to live her life as a financially independent woman and is not exactly excited about getting into an arranged marriage. She finally gives into pressure from her family and agrees to an arranged marriage. But with only a few days left, her marriage is called off. Wanting some alone time, she boards the same riverboat as Raji's wedding party. She and Sriram eventually meet and, after a few initial misunderstandings, they hit it off well together. Does this make Raji a teeny-weeny bit jealous? Of course it does. This is an Indian movie and it doesn't take rocket science to understand Indian movies even if one doesn't speak the local dialect.


A dish called Raji.

96% of the movie happens on a riverboat on the Godavari river. What this means is that the director doesn't have to come up with annoying coincidences to make Sriram and Seeta run into each other in a crowded city. By keeping their presence restricted to a boat, they are guaranteed to meet and spend time together. The other thing that requires mention is the character of Seeta. Seeta is certainly not a completely unique character but Kamalini Mukherjee manages to inject a breath of fresh air (and spunk) into Seeta.


The funniest dialogue in the movie are uttered by an animated stray dog!

The rest of the characters are as cliched as they come. Take, for instance, Raji's fiance. That character is so stereotyped, it is immediately obvious that the fiance character exists solely to make Raji insecure. Why? So that Raji could start wondering if her decision to reject Sriram was a bad one and so introduce conflict in the blossoming Sriram-Seeta relationship. Get it? Had Raji's fiance been a very likeable character, the director would have had a challenge in his hands attempting to get Raji to look at Sriram in a new light. Instead the director makes Raji's fiance a caricature and thus takes the easy way out. The character of Sriram is ok. Other than his ideals, which are never stressed upon once the riverboat journey begins, there really is not much worth mentioning about the male protagonist's character.

The movie ends on a predictable note. Since I was concentrating my attention on attempting to understand the dialogue, I didn't really pay much attention to the other stuff such as background music and cinematography. Timepass!