The treatment is just not emotionally manipulative. It ridicules emotions.
Script bad. Story Bad.
Ms Glam Doll (Pavitra – Shreya) is out in the bad-bad world where the guys are
starved of the four letter word. Ms Good Looks is also Ms Scantily Dressed. OK.
She is working in a trade/profession/assignment said to date back even before
Lady Warren chose her profession. Glam Doll took to the profession through
Uncle Baldie (AVS) when mama was suffering from Killer Cancer. Dr. Money Sucks
keeps making demands for big money. So Glam Doll resorts to money making
through the profession. Her ‘customers’ include Killer Politician (Saikumar),
Swamy Lewd (Ravi Babu) and the rest. Glam Doll saw Zakmi Aurat (a Dimple
Kapadia starrer) and thus instead of ‘Operation Bobit’ catches up with Crazy
Camera (Sivaji) who is always taking pics of gals ‘in-the-act’. Glam Doll decides
to get even with Crazy Camera. She picks every guy’s instrument and not only
blackmails Crazy Camera but organises regular meetings for his victims, gets
back the cash and sends him packing to prison. Also Killer Politician is not
just starved of sex though he has a wife and a relationship decides to pawn his
son Mr. Juvenile (Kaushik Babu) for his political ambitions. Mum Mom (Roja)
watches and predicts Mr. Juvenile has a predestined life partner. She could be
Glam Doll.
Interval – Lucid Interval.
Over to Script: worse, Story: ditto. One moment of seduction by Glam Doll our
Juvenile promises to marry her: What was hitherto manipulative now gets
dramatic, loud and even more painful. Obviously Mr. Juvenile’s choice irks
Killer Politician and Mute Mom. With Glam Doll being belittled she decides to
take on every one (the audience included).
She now contests an election misbehave at the party meet and makes her claims
to being a Minister for Women Protection. She pleads for a separate department
for protecting women against contemporary evils against the gender. Obviously
does not know about the Vishaka directions by the Apex Court !!
You have a choice. Take this as a social document and cringe at the times we
live in, the Double Speak, or in the alternative see this as entertainment with
comedians, stars, songs and the works. Then you have the third alternative.
Crawl out of the theatre at the first opportunity because that is safe. The
first, you may not since it is too grotesque and bereft of any serious attempt
to deal with the malady and is so, so emotionally dramatic and screaming that
you cannot take it seriously. The second is even more challenging. Even if you
are a part of the audience of the sixties where women centric films dealt with
tears glycerine and weeps, you would find this too aggressive in that context.
The only purpose for which you may stay at the theatres is if you are hopeful
that you may by accident run into something good in the flick. The third is
suggested since you are not going to find anything positive.
Janardhan Maharshi who had earlier made the praiseworthy film Devasthanam
returns with a howler and is loud to a fault with his treatment of a tale which
is as old and surely as abused as the central character. We have had films
aplenty on women taking to prostitution by force of circumstances and facing
the wrath of the society. No one in the cast warrants any attention. Even
Shreya who has a golden opportunity pays more attention to her looks than to
emoting. Though she looks prim and propah (in fact too prim and propah for the
role!) she lets go the demands of emoting in sync with the character. Pavitra
could well have been a Biopic on an Outsider but is lost in a quagmire of loud
characters, grotesque situations and poor treatment.
L. Ravichander