Vedam

New Year's Eve in Hyderabad. Five people's paths cross at the same hospital. A young man doing cable work in a slum, a woman who cannot escape her debts, a runaway sex worker, a musician trying to rise, and a Muslim man who has lost his son. None of the five knows the others until that night. Krish Jagarlamudi writes and directs. The cast includes Allu Arjun, Manchu Manoj, Anushka Shetty, Manoj Bajpayee, Saranya Ponvannan, Deeksha Seth and Lekha Washington. The music is by M. M. Keeravani and the photography by Gnana Shekar V. S. The structure is a multi strand narrative; five stories run in parallel and join in a single event at the end. What interests the film is class and religion. Each character is trapped in a different place for the same reason: no money and a social position. The Muslim strand is built on police suspicion and stigma in India, a subject rarely handled in mainstream Telugu cinema. The risk is bringing them all to the same place, which the film does through a chain of coincidence; the known problem of the form is here too. It won four awards at the 58th Filmfare South awards, with Krish taking best director. Allu Arjun plays outside the usual hero shape here and the role stands apart in his career. Who it is for: viewers who like multi strand Indian drama and films carrying a social argument. Who it is not for: the five strands are not of equal depth, the ending rests too much on coincidence, and the emotional pitch is high.