Asmee Review {Rating: 3/5}

Starring: Rushika Raj, Raja Narendra, Keshav Deepak in the lead roles hit the big screens on 3rd of September. Here’s the review of the film.

Story:

Asmee is locked in a room for four years long. She is brutally tortured and this breaks her mentally. After escaping from the situation, Asmee finds out that Rajesh(Keshav Deepika) is the man behind all this. She kills him but to her bad luck, she finds out later that a man named Siva(Raja Narendra) is the actual culprit. What will she do now? and how will she handle this crazy situation is the whole story.

Performances:

No genre in cinema activates your senses like a good, solid thriller. When done right, a thriller has the potential to hit you like a thunderbolt, which of course is a rarety in the case of mainstream Telugu cinema where purist filmmakers are only a handful. However, Asmee, directed by first-time filmmaker Sesh Karthikeya, proves to be a welcome surprise. The taut, compact thriller spanning a little over 90 minutes, restricts its universe to only half-a-dozen characters but surprisingly leaves you bamboozled with its twists and its dark, raw treatment.

The film is a dark, revenge thriller at heart, whose plot mostly unfolds over a long night, one that keeps throwing new surprises, shocks to its pivotal characters. The storyteller deals with a hard-hitting social issue in the garb of a thriller, but knows the elastic of his script and preserves his twists carefully. There's an air of mystery around each character and your loyalties keep shifting from time to time. The filmmaker opts for a linear approach to the story and doesn't allow any backstories or flashbacks to disrupt its momentum.

The first hour adopts a more leisurely approach, taking the viewers through Asmee's plight whose world takes a turn for the worse after her kidnapping. Be warned that a few scenes may even leave you repulsed at times. The director tries to dissect the mind of a woman who just can't trust someone by their face value anymore. As a viewer, you are curious to know more about the characters, their daily life, but the film's scope is restricted to a huge house where Siva and Asmee reside.

There's hardly any breathing space in the second hour, where the screenplay is solid and actress Rushika Raj is at her very best. The dialogues are sharp, to the point and the Sanskrit verses do well in providing context to the idea of dharma in the hour of crisis. Raja Narendra has a good screen presence and popular theatre person, character artiste Keshav Deepak gets ample scope to shine. Hemanth Varma and Indu Kusuma are apt for their brief parts too.

Technical aspects:

Sesh Karthik picks a novel plot and he handles the subject very well. The film progresses at a brisk pace right from the start till the very end. The film revolves around 3 central characters and the screenplay is intricate. The production values are excellent. The lady oriented suspense thriller keeps the viewers engaged right from the start.

Verdict:

Watch Asmee with an open mind and you'll surely come out surprised with the efforts of a young team that's sincere in its approach to storytelling. Besides the writer-director Sesh Karthikeya, the film introduces you to a stellar, confident performer in the form of Rushika Raj.