When Rosshan Andrrews and Mohanlal met for the first time, ‘Udayanaanu Thaaram’ happened. (It became a hit and was remade in Tamil as ‘Vellithira’ and in Hindi as ‘Short Cut- The con is on’).
Then they decided to meet again in ‘Casanova’, but sadly enough, ‘Casanova’ didn’t happen. It hasn’t yet happened, but as per recent reports, it will happen, that too very soon.
So, if ‘Casanova’ hasn’t yet happened, then what happened when Rosshan Andrrews met again? Yeah, something did happen.
The superstar and the enterprising director joined forces to make a down-to-earth kind of movie, ‘Ividam Swargamaanu’, in which Mohanlal plays a farmer.
.jpg)
Produced by Antony Perumbavoor under the Ashirwad Cinemas banner, ‘Ividam Swargamaanu’ reportedly seeks to recapture the mood of the 1980’s and the early 1990’s when we had seen Mohanlal playing down-to-earth, human characters. As part of this attempt we see in ‘Ividam Swargamaanu’ veteran actors Thilakan and Kaviyoor Ponnamma playing Mohanlal’s parents.
(Hey, this is something that takes us down memory lane, to films of the genre represented by ‘Kireedom’ and ‘Chenkol’).
Scripted by ‘Classmates’ fame James Albert, ‘Ividam Swargamaanu’ has three actresses playing key roles- Lakshmi Rai, Lakshmi Gopalaswamy and Priyanka (of ‘Veyil’ fame). Others in key roles are Shankar, Sreenivasan, Laloo Aalex, Sukumari, Innocent, Madhupal etc.
R.Diwakar is in charge of the cinematography while Mohan Sithara sets to tune songs written by Kaithapram and Bichchu Thirumala.
Of course much hope is pinned on ‘Ividam Swargamaanu’, but being a bit sceptical is pardonable because if the very confident Rosshan Andrrews had made ‘Udayanaanu Thaaram’, the over-confident Rosshan had made ‘Notebook’ too. ‘Notebook’, a film which of course was celebrated by the media as something great, was in fact not so. Though it had some good elements in it, it was a so so kind of film and seemed to be lacking in some real vital elements. It was a film without a soul.
Let’s hope Rosshan Andrrews, the enterprising, confident and talented director that he is, comes out with a brilliant show in ‘Ividam Swargamaanu’, which will hit screens this Christmas.
