We are going to look into director Venky Atluri’s latest release, Vishwanath & Sons in this blog.
Plot Overview
Looking at the storyline of Vishwanath & Sons:
- The protagonist of the movie is a prominent industrialist and a wealthy man who frequently travels abroad.
- His mother is deeply worried about the fact that he remains unmarried even after crossing the age of 40.
- Amidst this, he returns from the United States one day carrying an infant. Everyone is astonished and wonders whose baby it is.
- The child belongs to him, born through a surrogate mother in the US.
- When he brings the baby home to India to raise it, the infant falls ill.
- Doctors state that the child can only recover if the biological mother comes in person.
- He sets off for the US once again without even knowing who the surrogate mother is. During his search, he discovers that the mother is Mamitha Baiju, who is twenty years younger than him.
- When he explains the situation and asks her to travel to India immediately, she demands a substantial amount of money to come along. He agrees to her terms and brings her over.
- The core narrative of Vishwanath & Sons revolves around the changes that unfold in their lives after her arrival.
Screenplay & Scene Analysis
Listening to the premise makes it clear that this follows a conventional, formulaic story template. From the beginning itself, one can easily predict the ending. It is a story with minimum guarantee potential, and even a decent screenplay would have made Vishwanath & Sons work well.
A well-crafted screenplay ensures that removing any single scene creates a noticeable void in the narrative flow. However, in this film, several scenes feel entirely disconnected without affecting the plot if taken out:
- Initially, the hero is introduced as a sharpshooter. While the scene is well shot, cutting it out leaves no trace on the overall progression.
- There is a neat scene with George Maryan; removing that also creates no difference in the story.
- A fight sequence inside a five-star hotel could easily be trimmed without causing any narrative disruption.
Flaws and Weaknesses
- Missing the Central Anchor: The infant is the heart of the story. The narrative should have ideally focused on the emotional dynamic between the hero, the heroine, and the child. Instead, the baby is treated like an inanimate object. When the baby falls sick, the family reacts as if a car broke down, lacking genuine parental distress.
- Disappearing Characters: The child remains absent for half an hour in the first half, while Mamitha Baiju’s character disappears for thirty minutes in the second half. Instead, the hero spends time convincing the groom’s uncle and aunt’s parents, which feels unnecessary to the main conflict.
- Serial-Like Treatment: In an attempt to present the film with grandeur, the makers made the setting feel unrelatable. Reminiscent of a Hindi daily soap, characters wake up wearing lipstick, and domestic help wears zari-embroidered attire in an attempt to make Vishwanath & Sons appear stylish.
Conclusion
The movie offers a clean family drama without relying on excessive violence, machete fights, or drug cartels. Had it stayed grounded in the emotional struggle of the parents and the child, the final outcome would have been far more impactful. Instead, excessive emphasis on heroism and melodrama dilutes the core theme.
IMDB: Vishwanath & Sons
