Sundari Gardens movie review: Lacklustre script makes Aparna Balamurali, Neeraj Madhav’s film a banal affair

Aparna Balamurali and Neeraj Madhav’s characters are placed in cliched situations, which appear too inorganic, and are left to mouth lines that barely need actors of their calibre. In fact, you could never feel that the characters have any sort of spark for this love story to work in Sony LIV’s Sundari Gardens.

Neeraj Madhav and Aparna Balamurali in a still from Sundari Gardens

Sundari Gardens (Malayalam)

Story: Librarian Sundari Sara Mathew is a strong and quirky woman, who finds a way to spread happiness around her despite her turbulent past. She falls for the new English teacher Victor, but hurdles keep popping up. How Sara gets through all of these with a positive outlook despite the challenges she faces in her personal life forms the plot of this musical love story.

Review: On paper, Sundari Sara Mathew, a 32-year-old divorcee who is strong, witty and has her own quirks, is a fun protagonist. Place her in a picturesque locale, strap on the profession of a school librarian and add a dose of romance and humour – it does look like a perfect recipe for a musical love story. This is what the makers of the movie seem to have set out to accomplish. But what doesn’t work in the favour is that the film never explores anything else. The characters come off as two dimensional, the situations all seen before and the storyline as predictable as can be. This means that within the first few minutes the movie’s novelty, despite its rejuvenating visuals, wears off fast and there’s no saving it after that.

A lot of the quirks of Sundari (Aparna Balamurali) seem to be added to give her a personality as someone who remains chirpy amid life’s ebbs and flows. But the film’s director and writer Charlie Davis seems to have missed a trick by focusing on the character traits rather than the situations she has to face. We get to hear the troubles she has gone through in a long conversation that doesn’t evoke any emotions. The characters too come off as insipid and the actors – both Aparna Balamurali and Neeraj Madhav – don’t have too much to work with either. They are placed in cliched situations, which appear too inorganic, and are left to mouth lines that barely need actors of their calibre. In fact, you could never feel that the characters have any sort of spark for this love story to work.

While Swaroop Philip’s cinematography is one of the few highlights of the film, the music - some peppy melodies composed by Alphons Joseph that are haphazardly weaved in – doesn’t save it from becoming a dull affair. The audience will get a hang of how things would end right after the first 20 minutes and the supporting characters are introduced in sketches that hardly make any difference in challenging the presumptions. We get actors such as Jude Anthany Joseph, Binu Pappu, Vijayaraghavan and Sminu Sijo in roles that are wasted and appear too dramatic from the ones that they have essayed so far. Some of the scenes could have benefitted if they had more depth and explored what those relationships added to Sara as a person. What further makes it a flat attempt is that Sara’s character arc stays the same from the start till end and you don’t get a sense of her feeling isolated at any point, even after her mother’s death or when she is berated by Victor’s mother.

Verdict: Debutant Charlie Davis’ Sundari Garden is riddled with cliches and its talented actors are left to make the best use of the lacklustre material. Unfortunately, they are unable to, making it a forgettable movie.

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Cast and Crew

Aparna Balamurali

Neeraj Madhav

Charlie Davis