Amma Kanakku

The Tamil version of the Hindi film Nil Battey Sannata, Amma Kanakku is a feel-good drama — the kind of film that leaves you with a warm, fuzzy feeling — despite dealing with an important subject: the need to have an ambition in life. It is a well-intentioned film that largely avoids the heavy-handed melodrama that such 'message movies' tend to go for, only succumbing to this pitfall towards the end.

The story revolves around Shanthi (Amala Paul), a single mother who works as a maid and does other odd jobs to make a living and raise her teenaged daughter Abinaya (Yuvalakshmi, adequate). But the girl has preconceived notions on life. She believes that just like a doctor's child growing up to become a doctor, she would grow up to become a maid. She isn't interested in academics because of this attitude of hers. Her worried mother, who wants a better future for her, decides to change her way of thinking by enrolling in the Abi's own class as a student. Does this ploy of Shanthi work?

What works in Amma Kanakku is how Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari treats incidents in a low-key manner even while never trivialising the conflict in this tale. In the very little time she takes to establish Shanthi's and Abi's characters, we get to know where the two stand. For all her short-sightedness and adamant attitude, we understand why Abi doesn't have a dream in her life. She is living in a world where becoming a driver or a peon in a government office are considered achievements. At the same time, we see Shanthi working for the kind-hearted Dr Nandini (Revathi, lending heft to a lightweight role with her 'veteran actress' stature), and she has seen the kind of life that good education and aspirations can lead to, and realise why she wants her daughter to dream big.

Ashwiny's narration is also fleet-footed in the first half, with an undercurrent of humour running throughout the scenes. And in Ranganathan (Samuthirakani), Abi's school principal, we clearly see the kind of tone that...