Manam Review (Telugu)

Some movies are made with good story, they pay. Some movies are made with compact script, they pay great. But some movies are made with heart, And they reward. Manam belongs to the third category. It is not everyday that movies like ‘manam’ are made. You don’t just need the lens and the commercial script for it. What you need is an eye for the day to day life, a beating heart for the person next to you and a warm regard for the lesser privileged. ‘Manam’ is a fantasy of the highest order, probably. Children crave magic for fantasy, youth lust after ethereal beauty, men after colossal riches, but what about the real, average man with no such imagination. He craves the things that he had lost. The things that had lushed him with love, but which he admired only in retrospect. The real soul of life, parents. 
Only a person, who had lost his parents at a younger age, may feel the real pathos of life. Orphans are lost in the imagination of parents. But a child who loses the most valuable love after he had been accustomed to that heavenly passion at a tender age is a lost soul. His heart gathers a long lasting injury with it. It doesn’t readily respond to the outside love. It is a confused mess. Time may blunt the poison, but it remains. Manam bases on this fantasy of regaining of ever lost purest love.
As the story starts, Nageswara Rao (Nagarjuna) lost his parents when he was a six or seven year old kid. He becomes a millionaire and the wealthiest industrialist, but his parents and their long lost love are still fresh on his mind. He remembers everything about them. His mother’s coaxed feedings and his father’s pampered recordings. He also remembers their constant bickerings among themselves and the lack of trust in their marriage. He probably even knows that they parted from the world without resolving their misunderstandings. And then, he meets them again. They are reincarnations, but are young people, half his age. He pursues them and craves for their love, but instead showers with more of his own. 
His father is Nagarjuna (Naga Chaitanya) and he is the typical youngster, who craves for easy fun and a retreating view of a departing lady. He is a tough nut to crack for the industrialist son. Nageswara Rao lures him with treats and sops. At the start though Nagarjuna is bribed by many inducements, he is convinced into a convenient friendship. What about the mother, Samantha. You are right, mother’s love can never be lured. She identifies her son’s love, but not her son. She doesn’t need any convincing. She just shares her ever bounding love. Son admits that mom’s heart identifies unlike dad’s. And in these heart touching instances does the strength of ‘manam’ lies. It explains everything about mother’s love. Though, obviously there’s a lot more to understand. The movie flows smoothly with funny instances, but it is the parental love that an adult craves, which is palpable in every fiber of the movie. It is not loaded with compactly written screenplay. You don’t explain human emotions though scripts. You just need to strike the point. Vikram Kumar does it well.
Just when he is convinced that he has everything in his life, with younger versions of his parents by his side, life rewards Nageswara Rao with a charming girl. He is attracted to her and it is love at first sight. But look how her encounter is introduced. She is a connecting link for another lost soul, an eighty year old man, Chiatnya (Nageswara Rao), who too lost his parents when he was a stripling, and his life long hope. The persons who rescue him are his parents, reincarnated. It may look all far fetched, but it is intended to be. The latter part of the movie indulges a long narrative of Chaitanya’s parents’ previous life, their courting and their marriage. A shorter version would have been sufficient. Being an old man, he is taken into Nageswara Rao’s fold, after getting discharged from the hospital. His mother is the doctor and his father is the industrialist and his immediate mission is to unite them. This occurs while Nageswara Rao is planning the union of his parents. It may all look confusing. And if it is, I am happy. Because telling the story was never my intention.
‘Manam’ gains from the endearing love and emotional warmth that permeates in the movie. It shows the purity of parents’ love, importance of them, need for the suspension of their personal aberrations from avoiding the child a traumatic childhood, and their presence for a healthy upbringing. Samantha and Nagarjuna gain a few better scenes than Nageswara Rao and Shriya. The latter mother-son duo wasn’t much dilated upon. 
One can say the movie belongs to Nagarjuna. He is the innocent kid, on the lookout for his parents and he couldn’t be more apt. he relates easily with Samantha and Naga Chaitanya. Director’s visualization of pure parental love is held intact by Nagarjuna. He is eager, enthusiastic, forgiving and cheerful, all the personalities seen in a child. Samantha does a good job, too. Her realization is a very tender moment. Chaitanya tries to evolve from his previous endeavors, but still needs a lot of work to be done. Nageswara Rao is boyish than ever and is adorable. This is a fitting farewell for him. He should have seen the movie, I really feel deep for his loss.
Probably, the best undercurrent of the movie is the traditional background. The throwback of 30’s era makes a good impression of not only physical accurate considerations of vintage cars, cotton clothes and green fields, but it also focuses the simple nature of men of the past. Their wisdom in their superstitions and their wealth in their poverty. That maybe is the true Indian value, sadly on the fade. Traditional values are there even in the current period, too. You just need to keep an open mind.
The movie is touted as the Akkineni family movie. And it is, but it never compromises on the fully resplendent glow of the whole picture. Probably, that is why, it is a treasure family of Indian Cinema. I couldn’t have asked for a better few hours to pass up.