OTT Review – Kumari Srimathi

Nithya Menen, who is known to portray solid roles in her career ventures into the Telugu OTT space with a web series titled Kumari Srimathi. The series is produced by Swapna Cinema and is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Plot

The show is set in a village named Ramaraju Lanka, in the Godavari region. Srimathi (Nithya Menen) is the eldest daughter of a middle-class family and a chef. She leads a simple life and is not ready to tie the knot. At such a time, her uncle Keshava Rao plans to rob away her ancestral property and goes to court for this. The court hereby gives Srimathi’s family six months’ time and a chance to settle dues worth 40 lakhs to save the property. How will Srimathi handle this deadly situation is the story of the show.

Performances

Nithya Menen is a natural performer and she aces it in Kumari Srimathi. She fits into the lead role seamlessly and gives a fabulous performance. Be it her dress sense, body language, and dialogue delivery, she as an independent working village girl nails the role. Gautami is seen as Nithya Menen’s role and she is okay. She starts off being loud in a few scenes but as the show progresses, she is natural. After a long gap, Talluri Rameswari makes a comeback and is nicely cast in her role. Praneetha Patnaik and Prem Sagar are decent in their roles. Thiruveer and Nirupam’s roles do not have much to do in the show. 

Technicalities

Staccato and Kamran composed music for this show and their songs are impressive. The show is written by Srinivasa Avasarala and he adds an old-school charm to its writing. Be it his characters or the dialogues, he makes sure that the content is clean and watchable by the entire family. The editing is decent as the runtime is not an issue. The camera work by Moha Krishna is amazing as he showcased the bylines of the Godavari region beautifully. The aesthetics of the show have been done right. 

What’s Good

Nithya Menen’s performance

Casting

Clean content

What’s Bad

Lack of proper conflict

Lag in the last few episodes

Predictable storyline

Analysis

Kumari Srimathi is about a 30-year-old young working woman and how she lands in problems related to her ancestral property. Srinivasa Avasarala has penned the story and dialogues for this show and his characters are taken straight away from daily life. He gives a good scope for the director Gautam to create scenes that showcase women’s empowerment which is showcased through Nithya Menen and her turning into an entrepreneur.

But one of the biggest drawbacks of the show is that there is no proper villain. The conflict point is good but that is not enough to create moving emotions for the audience to savor. The makers had only one agenda which was to keep the show clean and add decent comedy. While the comedy clicks in a few scenes, the pain and emotions that Nithya Menen goes through do not come across properly. But still, it is Nithya Menen’s amazing act that covers the demerits time and again. 

Just to create panic, the director has added a few scenes that look staged and forced on the audience. The show which starts on an impressive note becomes slow and is rushed by the last episode and this gives the audience a mixed feeling. A key character coming back and the way the entire scenario is handled looks way too hurried. Yet another drawback is that apart from Nithya Menen’s character, the rest of the actors do not create much of an impact. 

The show tries to infuse all sorts of emotions to please the audience but it falls when things are overdone. In all this, the writing takes a few marks as there are scenes that impress you and take you back on a ride featuring some good family audience will enjoy. Just ignore the predictability of the show and once you connect with the characters, the world of Kumari Srimathi will suck you in and make for a good watch. 

Bottom Line – Nithya Menen’s Show