Enjoyable, even gripping at times!

Rajitha

Imagine sitting through a two-and-a-half hour movie that does not have a single male in the cast, and to realise at the end of it, that you haven't even missed them?

Quite a comment, that, on how our male-dominated industry appears to miss the point.

This thought occurs when you watch Snehgithiye (Priyamanavale in Malayalam), the latest offering from director Priyadarshan's stable starring Jyotika, Tabu, Srabani Mukherjee, Ishita Arun, Lakshmi, Manorama, Sukumari, Mita Vashisht and more, but hey, nary a male in the lot.

Men are strictly restricted to playing anonymous bystanders, a junior cop or two, a voice on the phone, a hand reaching out from a passing autorickshaw... In fact, the only identifiable male, the only one whose face you actually get to see, is shot from the back. And that too, you only see his face after he becomes a corpse.

An honest confession: You don't miss the mustachioed, muscle-flexing he-men. Not one bit.

Obviously, the playback singers are all female as well. And Kala and Brinda, the dance choreographers, add to the backstage female component.

If the cast is female-centric, the backstage however is dominated by men. Here goes:

Screenplay and direction: Priyadarshan
Camera: Jeeva
Story: Chandrakant Kulkarni
Dialogue: Maharajan
Art direction: Sabu Cyril
Editor: N Gopalakrishnan
Audiographer: Sreedhar
Music: Vidyasagar
Lyrics: Vairamuthu and Kathalmathi
Producer: Mukesh Mehta

Snehgithiye is a whodunit and campus caper rolled into one.

Jyotika plays Vasu- the fizzy, peppy, bold young thing. Srabani Mukherjee (Kajol's cousin, last seen in a miniscule role as Sunil Shetty's wife in J P Dutta's Border) plays Radhika, Vasu's bosom buddy.

Srabani is the quiet foil to the vivacious Jyotika, and is here characterised as an ultra-rich girl, heiress to an industrial empire and under the guardianship of her affectionate aunt (Lakshmi).

Ishita Arun (Ila Arun's daughter who, years ago, appeared as the little kid in the Vicks lozenge ad -- remember Jayant Kripalani in the Gale Mein Kich Kich ad?) is the third angle to the campus story, playing a rich, spoilt brat who vies with the Jyotika-Srabani duo for campus honours.

The campus story turns into a whodunit when Lakshmi begins importuning her neice to get married. To stymie the importunate aunt, Vasu on behalf of her friend cooks up a tale -- about how Radhika is in love with 'Ramesh', a naval officer who, alas, is right now on the high seas and will not return for six months.

The two friends figure that the tale should give them six months worth of breathing space.

As it turns out, they don't even get six days. One evening, Radhika walks into her home only to discover her aunt chatting away with someone on the phone. 'Come soon,' says loving aunt, 'it is your boyfriend Ramesh on the line'. And sure enough, a gruff male voice begins whispering endearments in Radhika's ears.

And as if that wasn't enought, before the duo can recover from this shock, the mysterious 'Ramesh' lands in town, apparently very eager to see Radhika.

The two friends plan to invite 'Ramesh' to Jyotika's hostel room, and there to hold him up with a gun. All this in order to unravel the truth. Nevertheless, after a few gun shots and a lot of confusion, the man masquerading as Ramesh drops dead. The result? Jyotika and Srabani are now accused of murder.

Enter Tabu, as the tough cop investigating the crime. Who really dunnit, and why, is what the rest of the story is all about.

First off, the positives -- the film, on the whole, is watchable.

There is enough suspense built in to keep you on tenterhooks. The backstage work -- art direction, editing, music, cinematography -- are all impeccable. And the leading ladies -- Jyotika, Srabani, Ishita, Lakshmi, Manorama, Tabu, deliver just what their roles demand of them.

A Priyadarshan forte, this. He always gets his cast to perform and at times, even excel.

Now, for the negatives. First and foremost, it is the pace -- there are parts, especially in the second half when the two friends are on the run from the cops, when the film meanders, giving you a bad case of the fidgets. Adding to this are a couple of misplaced dance numbers, such as the one featuring Deepti Bhatnagar in a banjara -style number.

In a light, romantic film, this slackening pace wouldn't matter much -- but in this one, going off at a tangent when you are eager to find out who the killer is, smacks of bad story-telling.

A couple of points are worth mentioning. One is the scene introducing Tabu. A while back, Madras was rocked by the Sarika Shah scandal, wherein an eve-teasing incident led to the death of a young collegian.

The director recreates that, to present Tabu as the tough, no-nonsense, go-and-get-them cop -- a nice touch, using a contemporary, real life incident to hook the reader deeper into the story.

The film derives its inspiration from the Marathi hit Bindhaast. Released for now in Tamil and Malayalam, the movie is due to be dubbed in Hindi and released soon. Priyan has added a bit of pep and fizz, given the Marathi original a twist here and a tweak there, and come up with a movie that is, on the whole, eminently worth your while.

Makes you wonder, though -- how come the Hindi industry, which gleefully plagiarises from a variety of sources, failed to find the inspiration in this one?