Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu (Kannada, 2016)

The ever-classy Anant Nag revels in a role where he has to retain that bemused look throughout but at the same time display unbridled affection when calling out the name of his son, “Shiva”. While he provides comic relief in a couple of places, it is that one single shot dialogue performed non-theatrically, where narrates how he married the love of his life as the camera zooms in to capture the intricate emotions, that I will remember from this role.

Sruthi Hariharan who plays the kind Doctor Sahana displays immense patience and love for the affected Venkob. She speaks with clarity and also displays the necessary maturity for the role. Rakshit who plays the selfish son of Anant Nag has quite a big canvas to play with. However he only manages to just about satisfy with Sruthi overshadowing him.

Supporting cast of Achyutha Kumar (Shankaranna from Lucia) and Vashishta Simha deliver neat performances with Achyutha bringing his unseen comic timing to the fore. Their combinations scenes are the most entertaining moments in the film. Special mention to Ravikiran Rajendran too who plays the adorable Manja delighting us with this antics!

The film has some good writing at its heart mingling the arcs of the missing Alzheimer’s patient and the disposal of a dead body. There are also couple of places in the second half where the cat & mouse game is played to good effect.

For some strange reason, the cinematography seems very average with the whole film looking very dark. The subtitle font size is also pretty small leaving the audience squinting to make sense of the dialogues.

The film gets drastically slowed down the moment Rakshit starts recounting on the incidents from the past or when he starts to show the pent up emotion for his dad. This undermines the father-son track and Anant Nag is left with all to do which he of course does excellently to save the film.