E Maya Chesave (What Magic Have You Spun?) is a magical, feel-good love story so very apt in these busy times where love is all about sending a quick 1-4-3 sms on the phone to the loved one. E Maya Chesave is about those tender moments when the hearts connect and the souls communicate. Gautham Vasudev Menon gives a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Tollywood - a movie that people would not mind watching once again. The story itself is nothing new, but the fresh faces, lovely music by AR Rahman, superb locales (most of it in Kerala), Menon's trademark romance (Telugu audiences still remember the dubbed version of Minnale as Cheli and the romance between Reema Sen and R Madhavan) and the candyfloss feel put the movie into a different league. It is easier to make an innovative, offbeat movie and get appreciation than make a regular, haggard love story and impress the audiences. Menon certainly impresses here.
The way the movie explores, both, the complexities of a woman's mind and the straightforward approach of the boy is interesting. Karthik just focuses on getting his love while Jessy is bothered about everything - what her parents will think, what her folks back home in Alapuzha think, how they will react etc and fails to see how life would be, if she gave love a chance. Scores of real life lovers, who often face family opposition, age barriers etc, would definitely relate to the movie. Maybe, they even have a lesson or two to learn from Karthik who deals with it maturely and addresses each of the objections logically. The movie has a few intimate moments between the protagonists, but it has more of romance and less of erotica. So it should probably go down well even with conservative 'family' audiences.
The best scenes are when Karthik follows Jessy to Kerala in the train. He steals glances, connects to her with his eyes and speaks through his silence. Jessy, meanwhile, is painfully torn between romance and her family who hover around. Scenes like this where they don't talk much but emote through their glances and subtle gestures are the best, giving the viewer a bunch of small but memorable moments in the film.
Nag Chaitanya looks every bit the lover boy like his dad, Nagarjuna, and his grandad, A Nageshwara Rao, with his chocolate boy looks. He is fair, polished and looks the rich guy in every frame. But somehow, he lacks that lean, mean, hungry look that one would expect a struggling assistant director to have. He looks far too comfortable and happy in the current scenario and maybe the hunger for success and the desperation to become a big name is somehow missing because of it. As the lover boy, no doubt, he wins your heart. His drawl has improved dramatically since his debut, Josh (2009). He looks comfortable in both, the duets and in the romantic scenes.
Samantha Prabhu looks mature and responsible in her crisp starched Indian attire. She looks lovely in the chequered cotton sarees with her hair and makeup, perfectly reminding you of a sheltered girl in a city. She aptly suits the role of an innocent girl who loves a boy, but is scared of her family. Her expressions - when Karthik proposes to her and she is perplexed at the suddenness of it - are spot on. Luckily, she never has to worry that she looks older than the hero because she plays the role of a girl older than the hero.
Director Puri Jagannadh (who plays the director in the movie) and Trisha have guest roles with nothing much to talk, except adding a little glam element to the movie.
AR Rahman's music is lilting and the melody suits the mood of the movie. The voices - not the orchestra - dominate the songs. The title song and Vintunnava look as good as they sound. The cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa is commendable. The cinematographer has used a lot of the 'American autumn theme' throughout - the golden brown leaves littered on the ground, tender greens on the trees - giving love an entirely new colour code. The editing is crisp and even those laborious romantic scenes don't look odd because love is the backdrop of the movie and there is no other angle the movie pursues.
Menon, as usual, comes up with 'a different love story' as the trailer says, showing a rare urban sophistication in his approach, rarely seen in mainstream Telugu cinema today. Perhaps, the only thing the audiences will miss are those hype-building scenes (replete in most NTR and Nagarjuna movies), those sharp and highfalutin dialogues (usually about the capability of the hero) and heavy action scenes. Overall, E Maya Chesave is a 'cute' and feel-good movie, as the teenage girls often call anything to do with love and romance.
