Rating: 3/5

Cast: Anaswara Rajan, Mamita Baiju, Arjun Ashokan, Naslen Gafoor

In Super Sharanya, which is made by the same team as Thaneer Mathan Dinangal (a superhit movie), the entire setup gets upgraded. School becomes an engineering college and instead of a male lead, we get a female lead. But Super Sharanya doesn’t live up to the standards set by Thaneer Mathan Dinangal.

Read: Indian teenage dramas that you will enjoy

If we refrain from any comparison with Thaneer Mathan Dinangal, Super Sharanya is a delightful watch that, however, doesn’t stay with us for long.

What Super Sharanya is all about

The movie focuses on the female lead, Sharanya who is an attractive young girl, which directly implies that she is pestered by several men around her. But the strength of the film lies in how it doesn’t make her a damsel in distress and opts for a humorous approach here. There’s Ajith Menon, a caricature version of Arjun Reddy. He is a senior in Sharanya’s college and keeps bothering her with his proposal to marry her. Her classmate, Sangeeth (played by the hilarious Naslen K Gafoor) also seems to take a liking for Sharanya but never really bothers her with that. The creepiest of all is her professor who proposes to her during her viva and takes revenge on her for the rejection by intentionally failing her for the exams.

In spite of all this, the mood of the film doesn’t get unpleasant or intense. With the right amount of humor, the movie keeps us engaged throughout the first half. The girls’ hostel scenes feel very relatable and don’t go overboard with unrealistic portrayals. The friendships, the fights, and the bonding all feel luminous. So are the canteen scenes. Kudos to the writers in imparting reliability through simple instances like these.

What doesn’t work in Super Sharanya

Where Super Sharanya falters is when her love life begins. It doesn’t offer Sharanya much value or control. Deepu wasn’t a toxic masculine guy, but he just doesn’t add anything to her life (except an extra 30-45 minutes to the film!). The romance just keeps floating, without properly landing anywhere. With a little more grip on this segment of the script, the film could have been crisper. Some exciting cameos help in pushing away the boredom for a while.

Anaswara Rajan is delightful as Sharanya. If there’s anyone who steals the show after Anaswara, it would be Mamitha Baiju as Sona. She pulls off the humor brilliantly without any farce. Naslen, who had a sensational debut through Thaneer Mathan Dinanagl, deserved a little more screen time.

The film’s title is taken from the character’s nickname, Super Sharanya. But we never get to know why she is called Super Sharanya.

Sharanya is shown as a naïve, underconfident girl in the beginning, but this doesn’t really change much towards the end, making me doubt if it would be fair enough to tag the film as a ‘coming-of-age-drama’. The character detailing is one of the best parts of the film. Every character, main or supporting, has something worth noticing.

Though 160 minutes may seem a little stretched, Super Sharanya would manage to serve as a good weekend watch.

Image Courtesy: YouTube