Annapoorani review: Director Nilesh Krishnaa’s film falters halfway

Director Nilesh Krishnaa’s Annapoorani is a film which, despite a promising start, sadly fails to impress.

Had its plot been rooted in realism, the movie could have been so much more than what it is.

Well, without much ado, let’s see the synopsis:

Annapoorani (Nayanthara), like her father Rangarajan (Achyuth Kumar) — the temple chef of the famous Srirangam Temple — is a brilliant cook.

Even as a child, she can whip up sumptuous vegetarian dishes. So, it is only natural that when she grows up, she wants to be a chef.

However, her dad, an orthodox Brahmin, urges her not to become a chef as this would mean that she will also have to cook/taste non-vegetarian dishes.

A devout man, Rangarajan is concerned that when people learn that the daughter of the man who prepares “prasadam” for scores of devotees cooks non-vegetarian, their sentiments are bound to get hurt.

Initially, Annapoorani is in a dilemma as to whether she has to opt for the course of her heart’s desire or whether she has to accede to her father’s request.

She decides to follow her passion and secretly enrols in a hotel management course.

Eventually, she starts cooking meat and also begins to enjoy eating it. Life is peaceful until one day, her father finds out what she is studying. Needless to say, her education is stopped and her marriage is fixed.

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Turn of events

A day before her wedding, Annapoorani runs away to Chennai with the blessings of her grandmother (Chachu) who tells her to succeed as the world has a habit of praising successful people by ignoring all their earlier shortcomings.

Annapoorani arrives in Chennai and visits a popular star hotel to apply for a chef’s job. She meets the chef in charge (Karthik Kumar) who also happens to be the son of the executive Chef (Sathyaraj) of the hotel. He insults her for being a dropout and sends her out.

How Annapoorani outwits the man who does not even allow her to set foot in the hotel’s kitchen and emerges to be India’s best chef is what Annapoorani is all about.

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Exaggerated and predictable

Except for the first 15 minutes when Annapoorani is a child, the film is full of predictable situations and circumstances. Adding to it, many of these situations are highly exaggerated in a desperate bid to make the lead character’s victory and through it her stature more substantial.

The belief seems to have been that audiences will celebrate any film as long as it is about women empowerment (read that as male bashing) and Annapoorani goes all out to make this point.

For instance, the scene where Annapoorani’s grandmother lectures her father on how he was being selfish for asking his daughter to not take up a career in catering.

The point that is made by the whole sequence is that men are curtailing women’s choices for their selfish reasons.

In truth, it is just a Brahmin father urging his daughter not to eat meat or cook meat. Had Rangarajan had a son instead of a daughter, one could be reasonably certain that he would have placed the very same request to him too.

Filmmaker’s POV

However, director Nilesh Krishnaa would have us believe this is a fine example of women’s oppression.

Then again, when Annapoorani chooses to enter her catering college, she is the only woman in the catering class. When she joins the hotel crew, she is the only woman chef.

Apparently, the filmmaker wants us to believe that women chefs are not welcome inside the kitchens of hotels and more importantly, it is men who have come up with this sinister design that’s keeping women from cooking in hotels.

“It is the girls who cook in our homes. When that is the case, why are they not cooking in hotels?,” asks Sathyaraj in a scene.

One could go on and on but you get the drift, right?

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Performances

The film has some impressive performances.

Nayanthara delivers a neat performance but sadly, it is wasted on a plot that is superficial and highly unrealistic.

Achyuth Kumar, who plays Nayanthara’s dad, steals the show with a fantastic performance.

Sathyaraj, Jai, and Karthik Kumar deliver neat performances.

The only laughable joke in the film comes from Redin Kingsly.

Final take

In short, Annapoorani is only a shade of what it could have actually been!

(Views expressed here are personal.)