Ananda Thandavam (film)

Anandha Thandavam
Directed by	A.R.Gandhi Krishna
Produced by	Viswanathan Ravichandran
Written by	A.R.Gandhi Krishna Sujatha Rangarajan
Starring	Tamannaah Siddharth Venugopal Rukmini Vijayakumar Rishi
Music by	G. V. Prakash Kumar
Cinematography	Jeeva Shankar
Edited by	V. T. Vijayan
Distributed by	Aascar Film Pvt. Ltd
Release date	10 April 2009 (2009-04-10)
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Ananda Thandavam (English: Happy Dance) is a 2009 Tamil-language film adaptation of the Sujatha Rangarajan serialized novel Pirivom Santhippom, directed by A.R. Gandhi Krishna and produced by Oscar V. Ravichandran of Aascar Films.^[1][2] This is one of the love stories by the late author Sujatha.The characters Raghu (Siddharth Venugopal) & Madhumitha (Tamanna Bhatia): their love story captured so many hearts that writer Sujatha, who had initially finished the first novel, started the second part due to high demand from readers. The film was released on 10 April 2009.The film was failed at the box office collection.^[3]

Plot

The film deals with the life of Raghupathi (Siddharth Venugopal), whose mother died in childbirth. He grows up with plenty of affection from his father (Kitty) and grows into a quiet, sensible, serious person. His father is the Deputy-Chief Dam (maintenance) Engineer in the Ambasamudiram dam, Tirunelveli, while Raghu is a mechanical engineer. He is frustrated because he is unemployed. One day, after returning after an interview in Pune, he meets Madhumitha (Tamannaah), a naive character. She plays childish pranks and brings energy into his life. Madhu is the elder daughter of the Dam's new Chief Engineer and his arrogant wife, who want a very comfortable life for the family.

Her parents also bring joy in Raghu's life as they accept who he is, and eventually, he finds employment in Pune. He suddenly gets engaged to Madhu, even without pre-informing his father. Raghu leaves for Pune. When he returns a month later, trouble comes in the form of Radha Krishnan (Rishi). He is a spoilt NRI US businessman, and worst of all, Madhu, being immature herself, agrees with her parents' opinion and decides to marry Radha. The reason given by Madhu's family is that Raghu's father has an illicit relationship with their maid, Jayanthi, who is 1 year older than Raghu. Circumstances make Raghu believe so. Raghu, heartbroken, attempts to commit suicide by jumping down a waterfall. He survives it with major temporary injuries. His father berates him and says that Jayanthi's mom breast-fed him and she is like his own daughter. Also, Madhu had visited him for namesake and had already left to USA with Radha. 6 months later, with further encouragement from his father and friends, Raghu leaves for US to study MBA in New York University. He has to stay in the mansion of Mohan, his father's friend. Mohan is a divorcee and rich share-trader.

He meets Mohan's niece Ratnakumari (Rukmini Vijayakumar) at the airport, and she drops him home. Ratna, though being brought up in USA since age of 7, wants to marry an Indian and return to India. She is extremely intelligent, beautiful, social, and cultured. Raghu starts his MBA course and befriends another Tamil guy named Natraj. But, at the end of day one, Ragu's benchmate, a Korean, kills his ex-girlfriend and himself before Raghu's eyes. Then, a black-mob tries to mug him, where Ratna saves him. Raghu then asks Mohan to put him back on the next flight home. Mohan says that he cut his own leg to escape from the Twin Towers on 9/11. His company fired him with a compensation, and that was taken away by his wife as compensation for divorce. But still, he did online share trading and has earned around 30 million dollars in 10 years. He shows his hidden prosthetic leg, and then drinks too much. This motivates Raghu to stay in New York.

One day, Raghu sees Madhu in a Tamil association function. Then, Madhu surprises her and gifts him an iPhone 4. Also, the both go on a trio-trip to Atlantic city, after Radha cancels on the last minute. But Raghu is shocked to find that Radha has been cheating on Madhu the whole time. He resolves to tell her the truth, but Madhu is blinded against Radha's faults because of respect for him. She accuses him of still having feelings for her, insulting him, causing another argument between them. As time progresses, Madhu discovers her husband has been cheating on her, which had let her to be on constant abuse by him, leading her to live life with misery. But Raghu and Ratna become close and their families decide to get them engaged.

One day, she escapes from Radha and goes to meet Raghu. Unfortunately for her, Raghu gets engaged to Ratna the very same day, and unable to bear any more sadness, ends up cutting her veins and begging Raghu to take her back. Ratna intervenes and Madhu asks for Raghu. Ratna is disgusted and complains to her family. They come and take Raghu away, leaving Madhu devastated, drunk, and bleeding through her veins. Madhu then kills herself through careless driving.

At the airport, everyone is gathered, and Madhu's parents are collecting the coffin with Madhu's body. Radha tries to lie to Madhu's parents that he was perfect to her in every way and cannot understand why this happened. In the meantime, Raghu, who had also come to see Madhu's body, arrives. He gets enraged and charges at Radha with a revolver, but finds out it is locked. He is later soothed by Ratna as she says " I love your relationship commitment more than you!"

Cast

Production notes

AR Gandhi Krishna, former assistant to Shankar in Sivaji made his directorial debut with the film Chellamae.^[1] Sujatha Rangarajan wrote the dialogue for the screenplay before his death.^[2] Filming began on location in Ooty, then moved to Tenkasi, Kuttralam, Ambasamudram, Papanasam and Multimedia University Cyberjaya.^[2] G V Prakash scored the music for the movie while award-winning lyricist Vairamuthu penned the lyrics.^[2] Vairamuthu said one of his best recent works was the song he wrote for this film.^[4] Vairamuthu said, "On reading the lines, Gandhi Krishna was floored totally and was in fail of words".^[4] Ananda Thandavam was produced by Aascar Films'Suresh Shanmugam. Shankar, who worked as associate to the late cinematographer Jeeva, was "cranking the camera".^[4]

Soundtrack

The songs were composed by G. V. Prakash.^[5]

Critical reception

Sify.com says that the actor "can do little to save the film".^[6] Rediff.com felt that Siddharth's performance was one of the weaker aspects of the film noting "though he does his best when he's romancing his beloved, and there are sparks during emotional scenes, he seems to miss his cue a few times, making you wonder if someone with acting chops might not have done a better job."^[7]

References

External links

• Prasad Kovilkar,
• S.R. Ashok Kumar,Hindu.com, 10 May 2008, "Sujatha’s novel on the big screen"