Rating: na Banner: Great Maratha Entertainment LLP Producer: Aniruddha Deshpande, Medha Manjrekar Director: Sudesh Manjrekar Story, Screenplay: Mahesh Waman Manjrekar Dialogues: Pravin Tarde Music: Ajit Parab, Sameer Mhatre, Abhijeet Kawthalkar Cast: Jitendra Joshi, Gauri Ingwale, Veena Janmkar, Mihir Soni, Siddharth Jadhav, Manasi Naik, Vaibhav Mangale, Bhalchandra Kadam, Prabhakar More, Sandeep Redkar, Sagar Karande, Shreeram Pendse, Ravi Sangwai Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

Our Administrators say that the country is showing growth. Now, whose growth they are describing, that only our Prime Minister can explain. 70% of India’s population live in villages. They are either involved in farming or are doing labour work. Very few are self employed. Anyone who has struggled with poverty, knows how extremely expensive it is to get medical treatment, while suffering from serious ailment. Mahesh Manjrekar’s latest film ‘Kutumb’ revolves around one such family from a village Bhor in Satara district.

Namdeo and Ganga Solkar (Jitendra Joshi and Veena Jamkar) are happily married husband and wife with two school going children Laxmi (Gauri Engawale) and Subhan (Mihir Soni). Namdeo works as a Gardner in a bungalow in a nearby town and also does odd jobs to meet the demands of his children; be it a Pen drive of PC for his daughter or a Bicycle for his son. He wants to see them happy. But, when the back problem of his wife worsens and she is advised to undergo immediate operation, then comes the real test for him to raise money. Family neighborhood friend and School bus operator Magic Mamu (Siddharth Jadhav) and his wife Saira (Manasi Naik) come to their rescue; but, that’s not enough. Namdeo has to borrow additional money from the Moneylender on interest.

While Ganga is hospitalized, the children live with Magic Mamu and they raise money by performing dance at a local show in a nearby town and win a prize. But, Namdeo does not approve the idea. He beats up his children and insults Magic Mamu for encouraging his children into such an act, which relates to his past life. When Namdeo himself has to undergo a major operation, the children have no other option, but to take part in a dance reality show, with the help of Mamu Magic and his wife, to win a big cash award. With ups and downs in the life of Solkars, finally it is happy end.

Director Sudesh Manjrekar does a good job to expand what ‘De Dhakka’ had left behind. With Mahesh Manjrekar himself being in charge of story and screenplay, the film has successfully converted an emotion filled script into a family entertainer. Iranian film director Majid Majidi seems to have left a strong influence on the director, while describing the village life and struggle of the poor family to meet hospitalization expenses. Looking at the demand for dance reality shows in our state and the talent displayed by kids , the link has been cleverly knitted with the children’s concern about the health condition of their parents and raising the money for the same.

All the characters have been cleverly placed in the screenplay. Jitendra Joshi bears a realistic look of a hardworking Namdeo. He has worked very hard through his body language. As Ganga, Veena Jamkar is a perfect choice and is very impressive in that role. Both the children have been chosen for their dancing skills required by their characters; but, they have performed very well in many emotion filled sequences too. As Magic Mamu, Siddharth Jadhav impresses, while Manasi Naik gets her dues after a long time, to perform an emotion filled role. Among the other character artistes, Viabhav Mangale as cunning moneylender and Bhalchandra kadam as a comedian have done well. There is not much to do for Music direction team of Ajit Parab, Sameer Mhatre and Abhijeet Kawthalkar, as most of the songs are record dances on original popular songs like, ‘Kombadi, ‘ Baygo baygo’ and others.

Photography by Ajith Reddy is good, capturing the real beauty of a picturesque village. Some of the dialogues are timely. There are many predictable happenings in the film, with screenplay giving a hint of the same on many occasions. But, the presentation of the same makes a big difference to make it entertaining.