‘Salaam Venky’ movie review: Kajol struggles to keep this heavily-melodramatic saga afloat

There’s a scene in Salaam Venky when Venky cries as if in excruciating bodily ache and says, as he writhes, that not speaking to his mom seems like dying. The reason being a quarrel together with his mom, Sujatha, who refuses to entertain a dialog about his euthanasia to facilitate organ donation. This alternate provides us an perception into how shut the mom and son are.   

Salaam Venky is assured to dry your tear ducts; it should even squeeze a tear or two out of the unsentimental viewer. Actor-director Revathy’s movie is about 24-year-old Venkatesh, his mom Sujatha, and their struggle towards a debilitating illness and a system which denies him euthanasia. Kajol is superlative as Sujatha, Venkatesh’s (Vishal Jethwa) mom who takes on the system on his behalf.

The movie relies on Shrikanth Murthy’s The Final Hurrah, impressed by the real-life story of chess participant Kolavennu Venkatesh who, helped by his mom Ok Sujatha, petitioned for euthanasia in order that he may donate his organs. Venkatesh suffered from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which causes muscle degeneration and ultimately results in dying. He needed to donate his organs whereas they have been viable to be harvested. 

The Venky of the movie is a contented, Bollywood-loving, chess-playing teenager who has a movie dialogue for each event. The primary half, relatively elaborately, introduces us to the characters and their dynamics. His equation together with his physician (Rajeev Khandelwal), nurse (Mala Parvathi), sister (Ridhi Kumar), sweetheart (Aneet Padda), and even religious information (Ananth Mahadevan) are all explored… however does the viewers have to know the arc of each relationship? The script by Sammeer Arora and Kausar Munir appears in all places, distractingly, and melodramatically so within the first half. 

The second half makes up for the primary after we see extra characters are available in and the motion picks up tempo. Sujatha information a case in search of euthanasia on behalf of her son — it’s his ‘final want’. Rahul Bose is the lawyer Parvez who takes on a case realizing that he’ll, most probably, lose.

There aren’t any pretences of offering definitive solutions about the appropriate or flawed of euthanasia. Nonetheless because the narrative strikes ahead, one finds oneself rooting for Venky’s trigger due to the purity of his intention. However since we’re sooner or later, we all know the result.  

Full marks for the selection of actors who ship what the script calls for; Rahul Bose and Priya Mani as legal professionals on opposing sides, Aahana Kumra because the journalist serving to the ‘trigger’, Prakash Raj because the decide who hears the case, Aneet Padda (who is particularly noteworthy) as Venky’s blind sweetheart, and Ridhi because the estranged sister who’s again together with her mom and brother. Malayalam actor Mala Parvathi is lovable as (what else?) the nurse Sister Clara who takes care of Venky. Having to behave with Kajol, Vishal has a tricky act (pun unintended) to comply with. If you happen to count on to see Aamir Khan, don’t maintain your breath, it’s only a cameo.   

The scenes between mom and son, even the light-hearted banter, are slowed down by melodrama and unhappiness. A teenager battling a terminal illness is heart-wrenching, however the director appears intent on not letting us overlook the very fact. For an viewers uncovered to practical sorts of movies, Salaam Venky strikes as leaning somewhat an excessive amount of towards the dramatic. That stated, among the traces, when stated by a terminally-ill younger individual are heartbreaking. Like when bed-ridden Venky says that (due to the illness) his goals have develop into small, or that how, within the afterlife, he desires to place his ft on the bottom and carry the burden of his physique.  

In one of many final scenes, when Venky asks Sujatha to sing for him, one expects Kajol to hum a music which appears becoming given the scenario. However what one will get as a substitute is a background music in true Bollywood style. That goes for all of the songs within the movie; why so many? Sometimes it seems like a musical simply because the opening credit introduced ‘a musical by Mithoon’.  

On this context, one can’t assist however consider Shonali Bose’s The Sky is Pink, impressed by the true story of 18-year-old Aisha Chaudhary who dies of pulmonary fibrosis. It is usually a few terminally-ill little one and her household, but it surely was advised realistically and poignantly.  

This movie is from Revathy, a director who gave us Mitr, My Pal,Phir Milenge, a section within the Malayalam movie Kerala Cafe, amongst others. Did the writers and director get slowed down by having to do justice to the story since it’s impressed by real-life and among the persons are nonetheless alive?

Nonetheless, the benefit is that the film may deliver the main target again to organ donation, if not euthanasia for the terminally-ill. It’s an uncomfortable, controversial subject, however the dialogue has to begin in some unspecified time in the future.  

Salaam Venky is at the moment working in theatres