JOIN USIshtakamya
Kannada (U)Cast: Vijay Surya, Mayuri Kyatari, Kavya Shetty, Shreya, Suman Nagarkar, Rangayana Raghu, Prakash Belawadi, B Jayashree, Mandya Ramesh
Director: Nagathihalli
Chandrashekhar
Based on the 1980s novel of the same name by Dodderi Venkatagiri Rao, and adapted by Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar, Ishtakamya, has all his trademark elements.
Exploring myriad shades of relationships and how love between couples rests on twin yokes of freedom and trust, Chandrashekhar’s Ishtakamya, requires patience to appreciate his rendition of the novel whose focus was a bit different. Moving at an excruciatingly snail’s pace, Ishtakamya is more like a television soap than a subtly scripted film. Therein lies Ishtakamya’s major pitfall. The other being Chandrashekhar’s conceptualisation to suit his cinematic creativity and predictably cliched ending.
That said, Ishtakamya may have worked with audiences had the makers not hyped and raised audiences’ expectations. Well, Ishtakamya is a regular love triangle.
It centres around Dr Akarsh, who runs his grandfather’s nursing home in their native village. Being responsible for mishap which results in hospitalisation of young Achari, he devotes himself to her recuperation. He is drawn towards her. She too reciprocates.
However, enters his estranged wife Aditi, possessive and driven by pangs of jealousy at his newfound interest. She starts to work her way to win him back. But Achari too wants her love to succeed. Caught between the two is Dr Akarsh. As subtext, Chandrashekhar has in Vikram and Roshini modern day’s live-in couple at play, with Vikram mocking at traditionally sanctified marriages which fall apart.
Where does the director’s heart lie? Who emerges the eventual victor – Aditi or Achari? Where does it leave Akarsh, who wonders whether it is love or marriage that works better, is what Chandrashekhar takes audiences through. While visually Ishtakamya is poetry with cinematographer Ravikumar Sana capturing the verdant and hilly Malnad region’s resplendant lush locales, the film’s songs are a bit let down.