Movie: Achar & Co (Kannada)

Director: Sindhu Srinivasa Murthy

Cast: Ashok, Sudha Belawadi, Sindhu Srinivasa Murthy, Jagadishwar Sukumar, Anirudh Acharya, Harshil Koushik, Vamshidhar Bhogaraju.

Duration: 105 minutes

Certification: U

Rating: Four out of five

The specialty of this movie is that it transports the audience to the 1960s and aptly showcases old Bengaluru. Director Sindhu Srinivasa Murthy deserves appreciation for handling the megaphone with aplomb apart from playing a key character (Suma) in this movie. The director has succeeded in narrating the problems of a large family (10 children) and how the head of the family has to struggle a lot not only to provide education but also to arrange marriages for them.

The movie starts off well with a variety of Suprabhatam from a 1960 model radio and the 10 children competing among themselves to use bathrooms. The story is about Madhusudhan Achar (Ashok) and his wife Savithri (Sudha Belawadi) and their 10 children. Madhusudhan Achar works as a senior engineer with the Public Works Department (PWD) while Savithri is a homemaker. Madhusudhan Achar has the habit of dropping children at the school in an ambassador car provided by the PWD.  What happens to Achar and his family members is what Achar & Co is all about.

The director has ensured that all the actors, including her, follow the script. Veteran character actors – Ashok and Sudha Belawadi – are convincing as a concerned couple. The transformation of characters – from over ambition to sober and responsible – is convincing.

As far as the performance of the remaining actors is concerned, Sindhu Srinivasa Murthy, as an overambitious girl who wants to marry a highly qualified bridegroom and settle down in London even though her qualification is only Matriculation, has acted well. Anirudh Acharaya, as a prospective movie actor, and Harshil Koushik, as a hapless second son of Achar who is compelled to take up the responsibility to look after the family after his father passed away and his elder brother got transferred to Delhi, is convincing.

The movie Achar & Co is a clean and neat movie worth watching by the whole family.