Yashoda Movie Review- Telugu (2022)

Movie: Yashoda (2022)

Director: Hari-Harish

Production: Sivalenka Krishna Prasad

Cast: Samantha, Unni Mukundan & Varalakshmi Sarathkumar

Music: Manisharma

Editor: Marthand K Venkatesh

Cinematography: M. Sukumar

Censor: U/A (13+)

Release Date: 11/11/22

Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime

 2.75/5

   'Unhackneyed yet Shambles'

01. All about Yashoda.

'Yashoda' is an experimental film that has tinges of science fiction too. It is all about 'Surrogacy' & the problems that it's causing to the low-income ladies and the crimes behind the scenes. A very different genre that telugu industry has ever explored. In past we had films where a mother sacrifices her offspring for another women for sake of her love intrest or some other reasons but 'Surrogacy' is a new dimension to the new age films, especially Indian films. So no more delay let's get in. 

02. Plot 

Yashoda opens to Samantha's consent to a surrogacy proposal, she's introduced as a low-income women who works as a Zomato delivery agent. Later, cutting sharp she's into 'Eva fertility center' where she's looked after & here all the things are very suspicious, like no one would have never seen such facilities nor privacy locks, tight surveillance etc. She's introduced to a team who rag her initially, like there is a restricted zone in the centre named 'Zone-2' to which access is denied for the surrogate mothers, & this is where the fertility center carries all the surgical operations. The things get vivid only when one of her co-surrogate is at her verge of labour pains and is taken to Zone-2 but never returns. 

Irresolute Yashoda, is not able to accept the things as they are like her fellow surrogate mothers. She constantly tries to know the mysteries behind every uncertainty. Unni Mukundan as Dr. Gautham & Varalakshmi as Madhubala are the incharges in the fertility center. Yashoda tries to lure Dr. Gautham inorder to understand the mysteries around her, but doesn't realise that she's getting into much much trouble. How and why she falls into trouble is to wait and watch in the film.

The second half gets into much more details, like the particular fertility center is not just a centre with clinical operations but a mafia as a whole. It tempts low-income ladies to accept surrogacy for the sake of money and later use them for their cruel needs. Dr. Gautham is also a scientist who has a formula for all these 'Anti-Aging' agents, botox injections, cold creams, fairness creams, fairness enhancing products etc etc. And the formula is derived from foetus or the embryo cells. So any one who accepts the proposal of surrogacy is brutally killed after their purpose is solved & the mystery remains as a mystery to the world. 

But, yet again there is something more than this in the film, that Yashoda is on a mission to expose this filthy business to the outside world. How and why she's on mission, is again something that you have to watch in the film.

03. About the performances of lead cast.

Samantha, the queen of acting, does she require any applauses?! She's the best. Her choice of films is really making her someone irreplaceable & inspirational. Yashoda is one of her career best performances, she has a role equivalent to male lead role, why say all this, She's the hero of the film! That's it! She, fights, emotes, expresses, acts, performs, weeps, laughs in the film & what not, she's damn good. But, a small drawback is her voice, she mumbled almost all the dialogues hence the power is lost, it would be better if she continues with Chinmayi as her voice artist. 

Unni Mukundan as Dr. Gautham is a beast! My god, I think the director wants Unni to explore all shades of him in one film itself, that's why he's here😂. Jokes apart, Unni Mukundan is a rockstar, he's a perfect fit, I don't have anything left to say about him, he's just too good. 

Varalakshmi, Rao Ramesh, Murali Sharma, Sampath Raj also get some crucial roles & all of them prove their worth. 

04. What I liked and what I didn't like in Yashoda. 

Everything I liked about the film is the unique concept, and such a serious theme being projected. Hats off to the guts of director to focus something like this on cinema screen. Surrogacy is indeed a serious topic to be discussed, but not only that but also the crimes behind getting the surrogate mothers & the mafia behind using them for yet another gruesome purpose strikes the hearts. 

Emotions were carried out well throughout, the story has a good content and weightage. The lead cast too did magic with their performances. Especially, credits to Samantha and Unni Mukundan. 

Coming to the crucial part, the flaws in the film.

Right from the beginning, the editing is a huge problem, entire first half is a torture to bear, because it's like watching two different films at a time without basics. Everyone knows that the cinema is building a foundation in first half of the film for the structure that finishes in the second half, but who has all the patience to watch such melodrama in the entire first half. 

And secondly, there are way too many twists, and also the film is aiming completely at a different altitude, it starts with Surrogacy and ends with Mafia that is ruthlessly killing economically low women for their own purposes & that is much more irritating to digest. 

Next of all, it's more or less a documentary rather a movie. Entire second half though has colours of a perfect science fiction, but still lacks cinematic flavour. It is serious addressing a serious issue, and if you're really not interested in that topic that this movie is going on reading, you don't have any other option other than skipping the film. 

05. Final verdict

I didn't like the film. It's ok, that it addressed such henious crime and a serious issue, no doubt about the proof but still it is far from reality, no one can give 100% clarification that everything that is happening in the film is true, it could be fantasy too. So, when addressing a real life issue & interventions with fantasy is like- Weirdo! There is feeling like 'What nonsense is this film trying to tell?' at one junctures of the film & that is where the film actually lost. If not for Samanatha or Unni, this film is utter waste. A one time watch with lost of reservations could do the job. That's it, from my side. Still, I rated it 2.75/5 for the quality guts that the team had to bring such things on to the cinema screen.