Director: Vijay
Cast: Prabhudeva, Ditya Bhande, Aishwarya Rajesh
Music: Sam CS
Lakshmi is a film that you feel bad dissing. While there are the glaring negatives, there’s something immensely likeable about it too. A film with children tends to go overboard, and the lead actors are usually precocious, but Vijay, for most part, stays clear of those cliches.
Ditya as Lakshmi is very likeable. She’s the kind of child who does not skip to school, but rather dance in synchrony with the music playing inside her head. She’s forever tapping her feet, in school, after barging into an eatery where they play music or while waiting in the reception area of a dance institute. Predictably enough, she, rather her dance, steps inside your heart.
She’s not known a father figure and makes one of the brusque owner of an upmarket eatery (Prabhudeva); even he learns to smile and wait to do her bidding. Her mother (an utterly wasted Aishwarya Rajesh; it is criminal to reduce an actress of her potential to a one-note role) likes to keep the daughter away from song and dance, and cue music screams flashback! So, what happens when she lies to her mother, ropes in her principal (Kovai Sarala playing a role with the quirks that she’s known for) for the deception and goes to Mumbai to take part in a dance show?
The character of Lakshmi is interesting. She does not revel in self-pity but finds a way to get what she wants. She makes fun of Akshat Singh’s body shape, but when she realises he can dance, and how, she quickly roots for him and shakes hand. She’s a learner. That’s not true of the other children or the director. I hoped the poor kid, who’s grace personified on stage, won’t get body-shamed, but oh he does. Mighty insensitive for a film that bats for the underdog.
Predictably enough, the sober eatery owner Krishna (Prabhudeva) goes by VK – the hotshot dancer in Mumbai. The dancers there look up to him, but a nemesis from the past is waiting for a victory that’s been earned and not handed on a platter. There’s mention of TRPs and why a Mumbai team must win. But, you know who will, so that’s half the fun gone.
Now that the story is out of the way, it’s time to sit back and take in the glorious dancing. Have we had a more graceful male dancer than Prabhudeva in recent times? The man is like fine wine, getting better with age. Then, there’s Ditya, Akshat Singh of India’s Got Talent fame (yes the same kid who took part in The Ellen Degeneres Show when he was eight), and others who shake a leg like they were meant to. Mercifully, just to make Ditya look good, the others have not been portrayed as average.
If you wait till the end titles roll, you’ll know they had fun making the film. There’s so much laughter on the set in the behind-the-scenes montage, gay abandon when Prabhudeva dances, and cheering when Vijay rushes to hug a kid after a particularly good shot.
Recommended
But, does that fun fully translate onto screen? Not quite. Vijay needs to get back to the drawing board and get his mojo back. He’s a filmmaker who can create sensitive characters; of late, we’ve been seeing a spate of one-note, mono-colour characters emerge out of his palette.
You know a film like this needs a rousing climax play-off dance, and that’s what you get. Sam CS’ music score is spot on for the songs, though there are too many of them, and his background music for the climax is the kind that will automatically have you say, ‘kannu verkudhu’.
*****
The Lakshmi review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.