Fresh and refreshing like a cup of coffee. Review on Anand Movie

Anand is the first Telugu movie I ever really liked. (I haven’t watched many Telugu movies). Fresh and highly original it has all the qualities of a fairly decent family entertainer.It is sort of a movie, you can watch with a pleasant smile spread across your face. I had the luck to watch the movie two times.

Anand’s and Rupa’s past are connected by a tragic accident. Rupa’s parents get killed in a road accident, the culprit being drunken Anand’s father who becomes insane out of guilt. The movie has the stories of Anand and Rupa running in parallel until they meet.

Though Rupa is an independent girl of today, she is willing to accept a controlling, dominating woman of yesterday as her mother-in-law only because she believes that Rahul her fiancé is also a good friend.

But she feels betrayed hours before her marriage. For emotional reasons, she wants to wear her dead mother’s saree for the ceremony, while Rahul’s mother wants her to wear a traditional Red marriage saree in north Indian style. Rupa refuses at first. After pleading for couple of times, she wears the red saree the way Rahul’s mother wants her to.

But narrow minded Rahul’s mother blows up the issue and demands on apology before everybody. Rahul considers it a small issue and neglects to support Rupa. But Rupa senses more from the issue; because for the first time she sees it clearly that Rahul doesn’t have back bone to stand against his mother.

She realizes that the compromise she was once too willing to make, in spite of the warnings of her friends and well wishers, was actually her stupidity. She backs out before it becomes too late. The marriage gets cancelled.

Anand doing his MBA in US had come back to India for holidays. Anand’s mother is invited to attend Rupa’s marriage, but she sends her son to attend the marriage. So that’s how Anand meets Rupa. He witnesses the scene before the marriage is called off and he instantly finds himself in love with Rupa. How he cajoles her to falls in love with him forms the rest of the story.

The difference between the characters of Anand and Rahul is depicted nicely. Unlike Rahul, he likes her for what she is as a person, and is not selfish in is love. The underlying fact that it is fate that connects them is also brought out in a subtle manner.

As Anand’s father hopelessly tries to help the dying family, he hears that the last words from the man’s mouth were ‘Rupa’, ‘Rupa’. Maddened by his guilt, he then keeps calling every girl Rupa. His inner most wish is to help the girl who became an orphan due to his mistake. Fate takes care of this.

Almost everybody has acted nicely.The actors playing the main characters however deserve more praise. A slight practical touch is in their acting adds to the feel of the movie.

Songs are melodies. All songs are good. But the best of the pack would be ‘Nuvena’. Even the back ground score is good. In fact it was so nice, that I had it running in my mind for a week after watching the movie.

Anand is a simple love story handled in the right way. The incidents seem real and natural without any depressing elements which are quite rare these days, as most realistic movies have an almost depressing, sadistic feel in them.

I am sorry if this may sound bad, but all the Telugu movies that I have watched, seem to follow some kind of success formula. Colorful sets, two or three heroines who basically act as kissing pads of the hero and they come just a minute before a song, then a fight with an really ugly looking goonda type villain, long preachy dialogues from the hero, unnecessary violence and sleaze.

I found Anand very different from all other Telugu movies I have ever watched. There is not a single nonsense, masala element in the movie. The advertisement of the movie had the catch line, ‘A movie like a cup of good coffee’, which I found funny before watching it. I felt otherwise after watching it. It sure was like good coffee. Fresh and refreshing like a cup of coffee.