Despite a wobbly screenplay and an overstretched runtime, Anbe Diana charms with its light-hearted approach and Ramya Ranganathan’s performance, observes Sreeju Sudhakaran.
Key Points
- Anbe Diana, written and directed by Pari Elavazhagan, explores the challenges of inter-caste relationships and the psychological impact of strict upbringing on an individual’s decision-making.
- Ramya Ranganathan delivers a strong performance as Magic, a confident Anglo-Indian woman, while Pari Elavazhagan’s acting is noted as a mixed bag.
- The movie successfully blends humour and drama in its family portions, with Roja’s portrayal of the strict matriarch being particularly effective.
- Despite some inconsistencies in writing and pacing, the film’s feel-good quality and relatable situations make it a decent watch.
Anbe Diana is a romantic family entertainer written and directed by Pari Elavazhagan, who also takes on the additional responsibility of playing the male lead.
Plot-wise, you would find Anbe Diana set in very familiar territory that you have seen in countless films. But the director’s light-hearted approach and a certain progressiveness in the way he depicts his female protagonist make it an entertaining watch. Its madcap finale will certainly remind you of those comedy entertainers from the ’90s, and I mean that in a positive way.
If only the writing around its protagonist had been tighter and the editing stronger, Anbe Diana could have been an out-and-out winner.
Anbe Diana: Plot and Character Dynamics
Chirumamilla Sita Krishna (Pari Elavazhagan) — cue the film slipping in the now cliched CSK nod — is a sports coach who lives in Perambur, Chennai.
He is in love with his Anglo-Indian friend Magic (Ramya Ranganathan), despite her annoying habit of calling him “bugger” in every sentence, whether spoken or over text. Magic has feelings for him too, but doesn’t admit them initially, though she eventually opens up.
But Krishna has a problem, and that’s his family. Particularly his mother, Sarala (Roja), who is proud of her upper-caste Andhra roots and wants her children to marry within the same caste.
Like Padmini in Lakshmi Vandhachu, she runs the family with an iron fist while also managing her own mill. At one point, much like the matriarch in that film, she goes on a rant explaining why she is so rigid and how those values have held her family together.
Her husband, and Krishna’s father, Bhaskar (Chetan), is far more chilled out. He behaves more like Krishna’s friend, while routinely coming home drunk and complaining about his marriage, though still fearful of his wife.
Krishna is terrified of his mother, and he also worries whether Magic would fit into their ‘culture’, considering her modern outlook. To complicate matters, his mother fixes his marriage with his cousin (Nikhila Sankar) without even asking for his approval.
Anbe Diana: Old Wine, Glossier Bottle
It’s a strange tragedy that the star-crossed romance of Anbe Diana, where people from different castes, classes or religions fall in love, is something cinema has explored for decades, and yet we are still not progressive enough as a society to say these situations no longer exist.
Of course, revisiting the same idea repeatedly also risks creative stagnation if you have nothing new to say. That’s where Pari Elavazhagan succeeds to some extent.
If you are from a middle-class background, and I can only speak from my own experience, you’ve probably heard these arguments during discussions about inter-caste relationships: “How will he or she adjust to our culture?” “Marriage isn’t just about two people, it’s about two families.” And so on.
Pari Elavazhagan pushes back against these arguments by insisting that marriage is primarily about two individuals wholeheartedly choosing each other, with everything else coming later. Yet, at the same time, the route he takes to arrive there doesn’t always feel as deeply explored as it could have been.
His treatment of the romance is breezy, humorous and, to a large extent, relatable. The humour may not be consistently good, but there are some good chuckle-worthy moments, particularly with antics of the father character and some of Krishna’s interactions with his friends.
The part where Anbe Diana felt the most interesting was when it delves into the psychological complexities of someone brought up by conservative parents and how growing up in a strict household can damage a person’s ability to make decisions independently. Where even something as personal as falling in love begins to feel like it must happen within a prescribed set of conditions.
I liked how Anbe Diana explores the self-doubt such an upbringing creates within a person. In trying to figure out whether his forward-thinking girlfriend can adjust to his family’s values, Krishna begins to mirror his mother’s traditionalist worldview. At the same time, he has become so diffident that he doesn’t want to take the difficult step himself.
When Magic tells him that someone else has proposed to her, he is actually relieved because he believes he has found an easy escape.
On the surface, he is behaving like an ass. But it is equally established that his thinking has been shaped by years of conformity drilled into him while growing up.
Anbe Diana Review: Inconsistent Characterisation
The issue is that Krishna often comes across as a contradiction. Sure, he is a pushover in front of his mother, but elsewhere he displays plenty of confidence, leading his group of friends, sharing an easy rapport with his father and even choosing a profession his mother doesn’t approve of. That contrast doesn’t come across as convincing. His emotional coherence feels so inconsistently written that you begin to wonder what a confident girl like Magic sees in him.
There comes a point where the couple have a fight similar to the one between the leads in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, another film about two people from different cultural backgrounds falling in love.
At that stage, all Krishna needs to do is take a firmer stand. Instead, his decision to go along with his mother’s wishes feels baffling. Sure, the hilarious climax and the convenient way his problems are resolved help save the day for Krishna but by then it becomes bit hard for us to root for him.
I found Pari Elavazhagan’s performance also to be a mixed bag. He is impressive in several portions, especially the lighter scenes, and his outburst in the climax works well. But in some of the more dramatic stretches, he comes up short.
Except for her questionable choice in men, I liked the female lead much more. Ramya Ranganathan, who impressed in Nilavuku Enmel Ennadi Kobam, brings enough ‘magic’ to the role with her confident, spirited performance. The film, however, expects us to overlook the fact that someone who refuses to be pushed around and never takes flak from anyone, including her prospective in-laws, ends up giving in rather too easily, especially to a man who repeatedly lies to her.
Also, for a film that champions individuality in relationships, the sequence where the leads try to win over each other’s families by adopting each other’s religious customs feels rather contradictory.
Anbe Diana: The Supporting Cast Deliver Well
Like the romance, the family portions are handled with a blend of humour and drama. The film still falls back on the familiar trope of the mother eventually realising her casteist views are outdated predictably through her daughter’s storyline. Yet, thanks to the restrained tone maintained by the director, the turnaround doesn’t come with needless melodrama.
There are two dramatic stretches, one in Krishna’s house and another in his sister’s marital home, where the scenes unfold without any visual cuts. That approach makes both the drama and the performances more effective.
Roja, as the strict matriarch, is particularly well utilised in these scenes, though I wished her character had been given a more convincing arc of self-reflection than what the film ultimately offers. Beyond questioning her caste pride, I don’t see her truly confronting how her controlling nature has damaged her children’s confidence, and that could have made this track much stronger.
Chetan delivers an entertaining performance as her husband.
Ismath Banu is also good as Krishna’s sister. There is a dialogue I particularly liked, where she says that an educated woman doesn’t need to depend on anyone. Sadly, the film never quite gives her the opportunity to live by those words.
For the most part, we see her crying over her broken marriage, massaging her brother’s legs, or simply standing in the background during family scenes. Even the supposedly happy ending her track receives feels more like a compromise than a triumph. I couldn’t help but think of how 3BHK handled a similar arc in a far more progressive manner.
Parithabangal Gopi, as Krishna’s best friend, gets some of the sassiest lines while commenting on the hero’s increasingly bizarre romantic complications, and steals quite a few scenes.
Overall, the feel-good quality, light-hearted treatment and relatable situations make Anbe Diana a decent enough watch. It has several genuinely effective moments, but at two-and-a-half hours, the film often takes the scenic route to reach them. Trim the runtime and tighten the writing around its main characters, and this could have been something truly special.
