Premise:  A village where the people are facing livelihood issues due to water scarcity. After discovering there is an underground water plant, they all decide to dig to form a water well to serve their supply. What happens in the process forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:  Starts by showcasing the villagers who suffer without a proper water resource, but interestingly the end goal is not the solution for the same. As it is a screenplay film, the situations, the conflicted plot-points and how it takes forward the characters is what we get to experience. Discovering a dinosaur bone structure is introduced as a threat in the interval block, the same issue beautifully evolves to be a major tool for the village’s development. But unfortunately, the progression is never engaging, except for the couple of interesting angles in the story, but they end up just as moments and don’t improve to be solid stretches. Of course, there are a few humour touches in the form of dialogues. At the same time, many jokes land flat too. Being a dry and a commercial flick is not the issue, but there are not enough good scenes that highlight the script. The character writing is not dynamic, most roles feel the same without any individual traits. This continuous issue leads the sequences to fall under the repetitive category. There is a value for the love angle in script-level, but the romantic portions don’t come together well to portray its importance on-screen.

Performances: Yogi Babu delivers an effortlessly natural performance as a village temple priest. The rest of the casting is on-point as well, all have given their best to make the storyworld believable, especially with their body language and dialogue delivery.

Technicalities: Not much scope for songs, Nivas K.Prasanna has neatly presented the subject through his rooted music, the sounding his apt for the rural backdrop, by keeping the latest techno stuff aside. Simplistic editing is the key for such a dry genre, but using plenty of blackouts and jump cuts spoiled the nativity factor.

Verdict:  There are a couple of interesting events in the subject, but it is not possible to sell an idea alone when the screenplay is lacklustre. The single-dimensional characters pull things further down.

KENATHA KANOM - A dry rural drama that lacks focus and finesse.

Rating - 2/ 5.