A fizzled out storm in a teacup
Miss India seems to have got inspired by many successful stories of woman entrepreneurs who put India in the forefront of the world business map to come up with a fictitious success story of one such entrepreneur through this film which is streaming now on Netflix in Telugu and Tamil after skipping the theatrical release due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Story-line
The journey of Manasa Samyuktha (Keerthy Suresh) starts from Lambasingi near Visakhapatnam where the circumstances prompt her to shift to San Francisco with her family consisting of Alzheimer affected father (Naresh), mother Nadiya, and brother Kama Raju after losing her Grand Father (Rajendra Prasad), who is an ayurvedic doctor cum tea maker and prescribes tea to his patients as a remedy for many ailments.
After finishing her MBA, Samyuktha is hell-bent on starting her own business against the wishes of her mother and brother. She tries to have a foothold so that she can introduce the Indian Chai in the United States of America where coffee rules by the brand KSK coffee owned by Kailash (Jagapathi Babu).
After facing insult at the hands of Kailash, the determination of Samyuktha gets stronger and her chance meeting with Vikram (Sumanth Shailendra) at Chai Ceremony turns fate in her favour as Vikram agrees to invest in her establishment named Miss India chai.
From there onwards, Samyuktha never looks back and succeeds in becoming a successful businesswoman in no time. Like in many success stories, some new challenges crop up on her road to success and how she overcomes them and builds her tea empire is the remaining part of the story of Miss India.
Performances
Though Keerthy Suresh is elegant and charming with her performance being classy, there is something amiss in her characterization giving room for a feeling that she remained underutilized keeping her potential in terms of acting in mind. Not a single sequence is there in the whole film to bring out the real actor in her.
Most talented actors like Nadiya, Naresh, Kamaraju, and Rajendra Prasad are all wasted in not so significant characters. Only saving grace is in the form of Naveen Chandra as Vijay Anand and Sumanth Shailendra two important men in the life of Samyuktha are able to give out decent performances due to the importance of their characters in the narrative.
Nothing extra from Jagapathi Babu in a cameo-like role except the final scene which is the only highlight as far as his character is concerned. He too gets a role where he has very little scope to perform or excel.
Behind the scenes
Firstly, the background score of Thaman stands apart all through the film irrespective of proceedings on the screen whereas the songs are a big letdown.
While the intention of director Narendra Nath who has contributed the story along with Tharun Kumar to orchestrate a film with some positive feel is praiseworthy but the way he conceived and presented it on screen is very pale and it takes the course of a docudrama sprinkled with some titbits in between to sustain the interest.
The cinematography by Daniel Sanchez-Lopez and Sujith Vasudev is pleasant and try to convey the feel-good mood to some extent.
Verdict & Rating
Anybody who wants to know about SWOT analysis or brand management, this is the right kind of film. Similarly, some quotable quotes are there enumerating the difference between charity and humanity, comparing business with war including tips on multitasking besides many more to take a note which can be quite useful for doing project work on Entrepreneurship.
Overall, its a fizzled out storm in a teacup giving a feeling that you are in a virtual classroom of business management rather than watching a film. The cliché ridden quotes and sermons have robbed the film of its charm and focus. More caution in treating the story with some intensity and emotion could have made the film highly watchable.
If you are a diehard fan of Keerthy Suresh, then you can opt for this otherwise you can easily skip this and watch all those Discovery channels which give more information on how to start a business and run it successfully instead of learning from Miss India.
