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Friday, April 18, 2025
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TAMIL NEE ENGE EN ANBE
EDITOR'S PICK
`Nee
Enge En Anbe`: Not mother of an adaptation (IANS Tamil Movie Review)
Rating: ***
Sekhar Kammula, known for churning out light-hearted campus love stories, treads
a path no other filmmaker would dare to walk on. In this process, he attempts to
prove himself in a genre one could never imagine to see him make films in.
Although he struggles to emerge victorious on the chosen path, he makes us take
notice his willingness to go against the grain with the Tamil remake of
Bollywood film "Kahaani", titled "Ne Enge En Anbe". This is
not a solid remake of one of the best thrillers in Indian cinema, yet there are
moments that will persuade you to watch it.
You know for a fact that Kammula never tried to capitalize on the success of
"Kahaani" because he decided not to include the pregnancy part in his
story, but he still manages to surprise viewers with something equally
unpredictable (as long as you don`t pay attention to details).
There isn`t much change in the story and akin to the original, a wife (Tamil
Brahmin) lands in Hyderabad in search of her missing husband with whom she hasn`t spoken to in over two weeks. She seeks the help of a local policeman, who
also happens to be a Tamilian, because she can`t speak Telugu.
They start investigating the case, trying to put all possible clues together to
see if they can find something solid that will reveal what had happened with her
husband. Will they or will they not find her husband?
Kammula was hell bent on convincing us that his version of the film is not a
frame-to-frame copy of the original. It isn`t for most part of the film, but all
those who watched "Kahaani" are likely to be disappointed because the
names of most characters are not changed in the remake. The senior police
officer is Khan, the terrorist is Milan Damji and the assassin is Bob.
Whenever you hear these names in the remake, you automatically tend to compare
these characters with the ones from the original and realize their performances
were not satisfying. No matter how hard you try not to compare both the films,
you are forced to whenever you hear these names.
Old Hyderabad becomes a crucial character in the story. Kammula does his best to
capture the flavour of the local culture when his lens zooms through the small
alleys of the city, from the preparations of a Durga Puja to the busy and
densely populated markee.
Here`s where you respect and appreciate the craftsmanship of the director for
making the best use of his setting and making us realize the importance of the
location from the story`s perspective.
Another reason to commend Kammula is because he ensures that most of the
important scenes are shot separately in Tamil. However, he seems to have ignored
the fact that it`s a Tamil film and has used too many Telugu dialogues, much to
the disgust of the audience.
Subtitles were only used for the Hindi dialogues. How can you expect Tamil
audiences to understand Telugu dialogues even though the film is shot in
Hyderabad? This was one of the biggest turn-offs in the film.
Nayantara as Anamika does her best in the titular role, but she`s no match to
Vidya Balan. Here`s a woman who is struggling to find her husband in a new place
with a language barrier, yet we see her with make-up and eyelashes in close up
shots. She fails to get into the skin of her character which was very important
for the story. Vaibhav and Pasupathy play their parts well but the fake English
accent used by the latter could`ve been avoided.
Keeravani`s resonating background score keeps the tension of the story alive
throughout. The slow first half is strongly complemented by a solid second half,
but will audiences sit through the second half after a dull start?
"Nee Enge En Anbea fails to be a mother of an adaptation.
