Direction – Vikram Kumar
Production – Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Akkineni Nagarjuna
Story – Vikram Kumar
Starring – Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Akkineni Naga Chaitanya, Shriya Saran, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Lavanya Tripathi
Music – Anoop Rubens
Release Date – 23rd May, 2014
Manam is a Telugu comedy drama released on 23rd May, 2014 directed by Vikram Kumar and produced by Akkineni Nageswara Rao and Akkineni Nagarjuna starring Nageswara Rao, Nagarjuna, Naga Chaitanya, Shriya Saran, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Lavanya Tripathi. Amitabh Bacchan also appears in a cameo role in Manam. The movie is a period drama of 100 years between 1920 and 2020 based on eternal love.
Manam is the last film of Akkineni Nageswara Rao who was playing as a 90 year old man in this movie died during the production phase. On the first day itself this film received many positive reviews stating it as a beautiful movie and a complete entertainer.
The specialty of this movie is three generations of Akkineni family can found and moreover instead of the usual grandfather, son and grandson story, there is a twist in the roles where Nageswara Rao is Naga Chaitanya, Naga Chaitanya is Nagarjuna and Nagarjuna is Nageswara Rao. Confused? Then read on the review.
The movie starts with a couple, Radha (Naga Chaitanya) and Krishna (Samantha) preparing for their son, Nageswara Rao’s (Nagarjuna) birthday. Then they fight on small issue and decide to separate; and while going to the lawyer, they meet with an accident and die on 14th Feb. Nageswara Rao grows up with his parents’ memories and becomes a business magnet. One day he sees Nagarjuna (Naga Chaitanya) in a flight and identifies him as his father, Radha and thinks that he took re-birth and so his mother may also be somewhere the same way and searches for her. He finally finds Priya (Samantha) who was his mother, Krishna and decides to re-unite his parents.
Then enters the legend ANR as a 90 year old man named Naga Chaitanya (Nageswara Rao) and meets with an accident. He’s saved by Nageswara Rao (Nagarjuna) and Anjali (Shreya) and at hospital on seeing them Naga Chaitanya identifies them as his parents who lost their lives in an accident while this old man was a boy. The remaining story is how these couples re-unite. It can be enjoyed only by watching and so should not be revealed through this review.
The three Akkinenis share emotional scenes and dialogues together. The cinematography, screen play by the director and the music are excellent. Coming to the performances, Nagarjuna and Samantha stole the show. They performed their roles very well. This is Samantha’s best movie so far and Naga Chaitanya improved as an actor compared to his previous movies. Shreya is also one of the best attractions of Manam while we are no one judge the performance of the legend, Nageswara Rao. He’s always the best at his job. Akkineni Nikhil can also be seen for few moments in this movie for the very first time. The entire story runs around these five characters and the comedians Ali, MS Narayana, and Saptagari are going to entertain you for sure.
Few drawbacks and loopholes of Manam include Anjali (Shreya) and Nageswara Rao’s (Nagarjuna) flashback and too much alcoholic promotion.
Verdict: Manam is one of the best movies due to a nice script, direction, performances, music and cinematography. Vikram Kumar is a winner in this movie for his script. Overall, it’s a must watch movie and a movie fitting the final tribute to Nageswara Rao.