Review: Premachi Goshta - Marathi movie

Here’s my very first review of a Marathi movie – Premachi Goshta – starring Atul Kulkarni (of Rang De Basanti fame), Sagarika Ghatge (of Chak De India fame), Sulekha Talwalkar and Satish Rajwade (the director of this movie). The trailer looked really promising (check it out for yourself below) and being a huge fan of Atul Kulkarni had to watch this movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWqjDGeCjTA

The movie didn’t disappoint at all. It is a mature and confident way of looking at one of the most basic emotions – love. The lead actors end up meeting accidentially at a family court and the story takes off from there. Ram (Atul Kulkarni) is a scriptwriter who wants someone to make a movie out of his original script but all he gets are producers who ask him to remake other movies. Sonal (Sagarika) is out of a personal crisis and is in search of a job. She joins Ram as an assistant and begins to work with him in writing scripts. Ram is going through a personal crisis of his own with Ragini (his wife played by Sulekha) who wants to divorce Ram because he is unable to fulfill her dreams. On the other hand, Samit (Ajay Purkar), Sonal’s husband whom Sonal has left, wants to get back with her. While working together, Sonal and Ram start getting attracted to each other due to their wavelengths matching and their views on life coinciding. How the director resolves this rectangular mess of a relationship forms the story.

All the actors have put in power packed performances with Atul Kulkarni obviously outshining the rest. This is Sagarika’s first foray into Marathi cinema and she has a long way to go in perfecting the Marathi pronounciation. However, she gives able company to Atul. The other actors all pitch in. Rohini Hattangadi plays Ram’s mother and she has a decent role to which she does enough justice.

The movie does not have too many songs, which is a good sign. “Olya Saanjweli Unhe Sawalis Bilgawi” is a romantic ballad sung by Bela Shende and Swapnil Bandodkar. The dialogues by Chinmay Kelkar have a nice feel to them and take the story ahead forward wonderfully.

For me what worked was the feel-good romance sprinkled all over the movie. From the innocent hug that Sagarika gives Atul to the fact that she starts having “khaari” biscuits dipped in tea just like Atul does, it is all super cute. Satish plays Atul’s best friend in the movie and adds a certain comic element to it. The film, however, belongs to Atul. Hope we get to see him in a romantic role in many more Marathi movies in the future. I am going with 4 out of 5 stars for this movie :)

It is good to see that there are directors and producers wanting to spend their time and effort in coming out with good Marathi cinema and not just mindless crass entertainment. I hope the success of this movie encourages other Marathi directors as well.