Amma Kanakku is remake of Hindi movie Nil Battey Sannata that released merely couple of months ago. Debutant director Ashwini Iyer Tiwari was helmed in bringing out Tamil version of her first movie just like Jeethu Joseph who remade his original Malayalam work Drishyam in Tamil.
This movie features Shanti(Amala Paul) who is juggling between her jobs at fish market, washing vessels at eatery but her defined role is of domestic help at Dr. Nandini’s home(Revathy). She, just like any other middle class parent, wants her daughter Abi(Yuvasri) to achieve more than she could ever do for herself. Become a collector, Shanti’s dreams and aspiration for Abi makes her work morning to night, so that her daughter can escape this drudgery.
Yuvasri is a class X student and isn’t so bright, rather doesn’t show much interest in studies and Maths being her nightmare, she could never comprehend to the subject. When being confronted and scold many times by Shanti as to why she doesn’t show interest in studies, Yuvasri replies by saying, if a doctor’s son becomes a doctor, engineer’s son becomes an engineer, then she too is destined to become a maid like her mother.
All hell comes crashing down on Shanti and she is left speechless, hopeless and dumbfounded. Later, she shares her dilemma with her employer Dr. Nandini who gives her the idea of making this interesting and challenging. This idea makes Shanti enrol herself in her daughter’s class just to prove that nothing is impossible despite your situation in life. A school dropout, Shanti starts working really hard and scoring good marks, rousing her daughter to the challenge. Abi, embarrassed and rather much angry, wants to prove herself, more to drive her mother out of her school. To this Shanti promises to quit if Abi can score better than her at Maths.
How they start challenging each other and who wins this intriguing competition makes for the rest of the movie.
Amala Paul reprises the character of Swara Bhaskar, who won many hearts in the Hindi version. But Amal fails to fit Swara’s slippers and doesn’t shine as bright. Similarly, Revathy, a veteran actress, dynamic and fantastically does her character, does meagre against Ratna Pathak Shah.
In the original, Pankaj Tiwari plays the role of the Mathematics teacher and the principal of the school, delivers elation and distress with comic finesse, combined with his timely sarcasm and wit. But in this Tamil version, Samuthirakani makes great efforts but could replicate Tiwari’s replicate.
Despite ordinary performance, this movie has greater message, maybe we need more female directors to craft female characters in such a way that no other male filmmaker can do. Shanti doesn’t seem to be bothered that she is a single mother and though she runs into a Collector, who is single himself, but the movie doesn’t go into the love angle thingy. That got me thinking, yes, this movie ain’t about some married actress and romance, but about it’s her daughter’s and her story, there can’t be a place for a man.
This movie may not be among the chronicles of great cinema, but Ashwini Iyer Tiwari narrates a noble story with a fair degree of conviction.
Rating: 2.5/5