Child actor Nakshatra and Ravi Teja in the film
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
At the first sign of abuse, a character in the Telugu film Irumudi asks his daughter not to blow it up into a big issue. She wants to raise a complaint, but he states that fear is the best safety armour for a girl child. Another character empowers his daughter to be transparent and share all the happenings at school and the village without fear. These contrasting approaches of two fathers become the film’s biggest takeaway. The other significant takeaway is how Irumudi marks the return of Shiva Nirvana and Ravi Teja to form after a few middling films.Shiva Nirvana begins to unravel the film with a sense of foreboding and maintains this mood until the very end. He sets the story in a village in Andhra Pradesh where bus connectivity is a luxury. Parents think twice before sending their children to a high school in a nearby town. The school has its own can of worms. The film opens with an incident of corporal punishment meted out to an adolescent girl. This is contrasted by how the male protagonist, Trinath (Ravi Teja), beats up a truck driver for honking loudly at the crack of dawn when his daughter is still asleep.It’s a given that these two worlds will collide. As several characters in the village are introduced, the director, who has also written the film, drops ample hints at the danger that lurks all around.Irumudi (Telugu)Director: Shiva NirvanaCast: Ravi Teja, Priya Bhavani Shankar, NakshatraRuntime: 147 minutesStoryline: In a village in Andhra Pradesh, a doting father who considers every girl child his own must confront a hidden predator when danger closes in on his daughter and her schoolmates.What might have been a regular story of father-daughter bonding, threat and retaliation gets an additional layer of intrigue with the devotional fervour. Trinath is a small-time trader who takes to the bottle barring the 41-day Ayyappa deeksha, much to the annoyance of his wife Kaveri (Priya Bhavani Shankar). The spiritual fervour is also used to establish the bond between Trinath and his daughter Manemma or Manikanta (child actor Nakshatra).
