Gamyam Review

"Nenu London, Paris, New York inka chaala chotlaki vellanu, chaala prapanchaanni choosanu - intha daridranni ekkada choodaledu."

"Nuvvu choosindhi pradesalani - prapanchaanni kaadu."

There's more where that came from. And it all sounds good.

Gamyam falls somewhere between what Mee Sreyobhilashi was and what it could have been. A person's perspective changing completely in a couple of days is heavy material, one of the toughest scripting challenges. If it's done well, at the end of the movie you'll feel like the beginning was so long ago, even if the film lasts the standard 2½ hours.

Gamyam does not altogether manage it, but it's still a story well told. If you chose to treat it as a romance, it has the ingredients - a heroine with character (and an excellent actress in Kamalinee Mukherjee), sizeable footage for the courtship, good songs with creative picturization rather than meaningless dance, a brief estrangement and the always-appetizing getting back.

There's however a deeper layer of a man's world-view changing, and it has some good lines even if not the best of conceptualization, and in general shows more intelligence than an average - or even above average - Telugu film.

Abhiram (Sarvanand) is the son of an obscenely rich businessman, and does what any self-respecting son of an obscenely rich businessman would do - get wasted on partying. However, when he falls in love with the kind-hearted medico Janaki (Mukherjee), he has to work hard to win her heart since she is interested more in what he is without his wealth and status. Which is basically nothing.

However, love is blind and so can see nothing (get it, get it?), and so she warms up to him. Unfortunately, she soon realizes he cannot appreciate her zeal for helping disadvantaged people and actually repudiates it, and so walks out of his life. Abhiram however cannot live without her, and starts off on a journey to trace her and win her back.

Now every journey needs a mode of transport, and Abhiram's super-swanky bike attracts some unwanted attention.

Seenu. Gaali Seenu.

It's hard to imagine how watchable Gamyam might have been without Allari Naresh. He's increasingly a delight to watch, and no one complains that he has a release every week, and sometimes five (fullhyd.com in fact has just started a special Allari Naresh practice to deal with the increasing workload - please apply). If Kamalinee Mukherjee lends class to Gamyam, Naresh lends mass.

Seenu is a person who sells bikes for a living - usually others', and without their knowledge. Many people would call him a thief, and he agrees, so at least there's no dispute there. He tails Abhiram for a long while on the pretext of trying to help him, but becomes a loyal friend when the latter makes a completely unexpected gesture towards him, and offers to help out in tracing Janaki in return for 2 meals a day.

The duo then travel through the Andhra hinterland running into a variety of people and experiences including a school for the underprivileged, a bunch of local thugs, a woman in labor stuck in a traffic jam, a street performance by a travelling dance company, and even naxalites (which incidentally has some pretty well-written dialogues).

Gamyam is fundamentally a romcom, and an entertainer at that - you can watch it giggling selflessly, and leave detachedly when it's over, stuffing the popcorn cover into the seat's crevice. How many layers you find in Gamyam, however, depends on what all is etched in your own mind. The difference between a movie and real life is the happy ending. There's a payoff in movies for becoming a nice person - in life, you can keep getting nicer and nicer, hoping that Someone will notice and give you what you badly want. The truth is either what you already know, or hopefully will never have to find out.

Kamalinee Mukherjee is perhaps the only actress in Telugu aside of Genelia with memorable roles - it's a pity she's making noises about turning "glamorous". Sarvanand does a good job of being the silent and purposeful young man, and you watch with delight as he turns over a new leaf - money and goodness is a potent combination, and there's nothing like changing an unfortunate person's life with a wad of notes. Yes, rich people have it all, including the greatest power to bring happiness to others.

Naresh is the life of the film as the hyperactive and talkative Gaali Seenu. He's coming into his own pretty fast now, a Bankable Star - people actually whistle when he first comes on screen. It can't be just EVV's efforts that he's reached that stage.

The few songs in Gamyam are all melodious, lyrical and good to watch on screen - they're more about emotions than choreography, and shot in poetry rather than in prose.

Gamyam is a good film after a long while. For best results, watch it before you become obscenely rich.