Ananya (Marathi)

Ananya is a Marathi film starring Hruta Durgule in the lead role portraying the protagonist Ananya, the film is directed by Pratap Madhavrao and is based on an award winning Marathi play.

The film revolves around Ananya the central character, who's life takes a turn with an unfortunate incident and how she overcomes all the challenges that life throws at her forms the crux of the movie.

Ananya is a light-hearted story of a young girl played by Hruta Durgule, which is also her debut film in the Marathi film Industry and its good to see her in a film that revolves around the life of her character since very few actress get an opportunity to portray such roles in the beginning of their career as opposed to the regular roles that debutant actresses often get. The film beautifully depicts a middle class family with a single father, his intelligent daughter Ananya, an MBA graduate elder son who awaits for a job and their extended family in the form of their lovely neighbors, Ananya is a topper of the college and aims to clear her CA examination but her father finds a wealthy boy for her to marry and eventually after a pinch of skepticism finally both of them get engaged, soon to meet an unfortunate incident which takes a serious toll on Ananya's life, the film depicts her journey in overcoming all the challenges she faces till she achieves her goals and makes peace with her life and the people around her. All the characters in the film are well accommodated in the story which add value to the screenplay, the film's screenplay is overall engaging but it does not offer anything new to the viewers, because we have seen such stories in movies earlier where a protagonist goes through some unfortunate incidents and fights back to overcome all the problems in his/her life, thus after a point the story becomes too predictable and in a lot of scenes you can almost guess what is going to happen next, again because there have been many such movies in the past with more or less the same theme with some changes here and there. There is also a cameo of Ameya Wagh in the second half of the film which seems to be completely nonsensical and forced, the character is a headless chicken without any background story and you just cannot understand why he is doing what he is doing in the film, it is so annoying that you wonder how illogically his character is written out of nowhere and how the film ends with him marrying Ananya (Spoiler), this is easily the most badly written cameo that I have ever come across because it just spoils the rationality and the concluding scenes of the movie. 

What works for the film is its lightheartedness, wonderfully written characters (except the cameo) backed by strong emotional scenes that talk a lot about how people with disability are perceived even by their close family members and how some people change the moment they witness imperfections and disabilities in the same people whom they had embraced earlier. The screenplay of the film does not offer anything new but it still manages to keep you connected with the story, it also explains us how an entire family is affected due to some unfortunate incidents that happen with a member of the family . Hruta Durgule as Ananya shines on the screen with her performance, she convincingly portrays the titular character depicting the right emotions from one scene to another as per the requirement of the story and she has looked really beautiful, goes without saying that she is definitely going to make her mark in the Marathi film industry after being successful on television, apart from her character Ananya's father played by Yogesh Soman does a fantastic job as he perfectly depicts a father who eagerly wants to marry his daughter to a wealthy businessman's son which he thinks would be a good revenge against his cousins who had denied a share to him in their ancestral property, some other important characters are played by Suvrat Joshi, Rucha Apte, Chetan Chitnis, Renuka Daftardar and Sunil Abhyankar, all of them deserve praise for their excellent performance in the film. The movie also has moments of humor which keeps you glued to the story, also the characters in the film look very genuine which instantly connects with the audience because we see such people around us in our close family and friends. 

Ananya is a cheerful film to watch although it does not have anything new to offers, but it offers light-hearted entertainment which freshens up the mind and leaves us with a joyful vibe.