Itlu Amma - Vaishnava Janatho

Itlu Amma

2021, Telugu 

Genre: Drama

Director: C. Uma Maheswara Rao

Stars: Revathi, Posani Krishna Murali, Ravi Kale, Prashanth, Aruvi Balaji

Mohan's Measure ⭐️ ⭐️ 

It was Sri Ramanuja who would infuse the humanistic ideals of Tamil literature into the lofty mysticism of Vedanta. His radical message of Service in Gratitude is what we in the West call Spiritual Humanism. Sadly, despite his image being the tallest statue in Asia, very few offer him such credit.

For such a quiet film, Itlu Amma offers a very heavy-handed message that verges dangerously close to propaganda.  Revathi plays a widowed Sri Vaishnava woman whose perfect son gets brutally murdered one stormy night. With virtually no help from the police, she decides to find and confront his killer. Her method is radical, not because of the image of Ramanuja in her altar, but by the writings of the man she replaces him with - Mahatma Gandhi. 

Writing articles in the newspaper about her desperation and mourning, her character hopes that the killer's own conscience will make him confess his crime. Such a plot is augmented in her daily walks to the police station where musical numbers speak about the ills of capitalism and social media, and scenes are enacted about the average man serving as collateral damage to the nefarious activities of politicians. 

The movie plays out like a 1980s melodrama, hinging itself more on popular sentiment than character development. The eventual feminist message would have felt more genuine had the director remained focused on examining and developing the lead character, perhaps looking into her closeted life and just what factors, other than one book on Gandhi, led to what is suggested as a pursuit of activism.

Instead, this thin story labors to pull our heartstrings, with law and order being placed second to societal ills. To her credit, Revathi plays her character with dignity and heartbreak, and I could not help but being reminded of her performance in several other awards winning films, many with much deeper emotion than what is required of her here.

For an award winning art film, I would have expected more.