S.Saraswathi Movie Review

Varalaxmi Sarathkumar is a powerful actress and has now turned director with the film S. Saraswathi. The emotional drama, which also features Priyamani and Prakash Raj in key roles, has released today. Read our detailed review here.

Plot:

Lakshmi (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) is a nurse by profession and lives with her young daughter Saraswathi. After dropping her daughter off at school, she returns to the school to the shock of her life, where the management says no such girl named Saraswathi is studying there. An upset Lakshmi then finds out that her daughter is in danger and something horrible has happened to her. What will Lakshmi do now? What happened to Saraswathi? And how did Lakshmi unravel the series of events all alone? This is the basic story of the film.

Performances:

Varalaxmi Sarathkumar plays the mother of a young girl, and this is something we don’t get to see from her as she mostly plays negative roles. The popular actress is great in her role and delivers a good performance. The urge to find her daughter’s culprits and the pain that she goes through are showcased well. Varalaxmi’s age and persona suit her character quite well. Prakash Raj delivers as always, but his character is not utilized properly. Priyamani brings a lot of depth to the proceedings and does her job well. Rao Ramesh and Murali Sharma are adequate in their roles but do not bring much to the table.

Technical Aspects:

Thaman has composed the music for the film, and his background score is good. Even the ordinary scenes get a decent lift thanks to Thaman’s work. Though it is not at his regular best, Thaman does well. The production values are good, and the look and feel of the thriller are decent. The writing is decent as Varalaxmi does well in this aspect, but her execution is ordinary. More on that later. The dialogues are powerful, and the lyrics are meaningful. The editing is not that great despite the film having a crisp runtime. Story-wise, S. Saraswathi has nothing new to showcase.

Positives

Basic theme
Varalaxmi’s performance

Negatives

Illogical screenplay
Lacks emotional depth
Routine thrills

Analysis

S. Saraswathi marks the directorial debut of Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, and she dons the role of an actor-director with this film. It is quite difficult to balance both, and the noted actress succeeds as an actress but not as a director. She has chosen a mother-daughter story and tried to narrate it with a unique screenplay. But the basic theme of the film, rape, remains the same, and the backdrop and the manner in which things move are also similar to many other films.

Varalaxmi starts the film on a gripping note and sets up the conflict point with a bang. One also gets a feeling that she has done her scripting right and will narrate the film on a very emotional note. But sadly, that does not happen as the film becomes predictable with the same melodrama, the hunt for the rapists, and other padded scenes that are unleashed on the audience.

There are a few loopholes in the judiciary that have been addressed well. The manner in which the courts operate and the punishment for rape are handled fairly well. But after a few good scenes, there is a dip in the story. The director adds many extra scenes just to create drama, and this does not work in the narrative. While the direction shows brilliance in the beginning, things get bogged down in the second half. It looks like Varalaxmi ran out of ideas, as her screenplay also does not create much impact.

The slow pace and the manner in which things unfold story-wise make everything predictable. The film had a lot of scope for drama through Prakash Raj’s character, but the makers miss out on it in a big way. The pain that the protagonist goes through after realizing how helpless she is is not conveyed convincingly.

Varalaxmi might have had a good and emotional script on paper, but the way she has executed the film is a mixed bag. S. Saraswathi is an emotional drama with a few moments that click, but the rest is mundane and ordinary.

Bottom Line: Nothing Great

Rating: 2.25/5