Samantha's Yashoda has been the cynosure of all eyes ever since its announcement. The film directed by Hari and Harish is releasing today on November 11, 2022. The film's OTT partner is Amazon Prime and it has bagged the rights for a whopping amount of Rs 45crs. The OTT streaming will be underway after Yashoda's theatrical run. The film's teasers and trailers got tremendous responses and Samantha indulging in high-octane stunts became the talking point. To top of it, Samantha revealed that she is suffering from a rare disease myositis, and sympathy increased in her. Let us find out whether Sympathy for Samantha powered Yashoda at the box office or not.
Yashoda story is all about surrogacy and the dark secrets behind it. Yashoda (Samantha) a poor girl in order to help her sister pursue her studies and get her married, decides to become a surrogate mother. She is taken to Eva Hospital facility and as days progress she finds something fishy going on. Where this leads to, whether Samatha delivers a baby, what is its connection to the mysterious murders happening in the city, and how they are related to EVA Hospital top brass Madhubala (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar), Dr. Gautam (Unni Mukundan), Union Minister Giridhar (Rao Ramesh), police officer Rishi (Shatru) and military officer Vasudev (Shatru) from the crux of Yashoda.
Yashoda's story is all about surrogacy and they tried to surprise viewers with a medical thriller. The story and plot chosen by Hari and Harish are novel and completely different from the ones we have seen in medical thrillers. The narration starts off in an interesting and exciting way with mysterious murders and Samantha is then introduced as a girl who opts for surrogacy due to financial constraints. The parallel narration generates interest to a point but the hospital scenes where Samantha interacts with others dip down the proceedings. But the director duo scored points by including the emotional angle into it. Artificiality increased during the hospital scenes unlike the investigation scenes involving Murali Sharma, Sampath Raj, and Shatru. But curiosity levels increase once Samantha finds out interesting and shocking things in the hospital during the pre-interval and interval scenes.
This set the stage for the gripping second half with Samantha taking charge. This excites viewers and Samantha's role is elevated to the core thrilling her fans. But when the stage is set for the next level takeoff, the flashback featuring Varalakshmi Sarathkumar and Unni Mukundan, and Rao Ramesh dips the proceedings. There are many scenes in the film in the second half when viewers think that the film come to end but it drags on and on till the routine climax brings down the curtains to Yashoda. Hari and Harish's screenplay is fine to some point but at times it went for a toss. The same is with the script and the story.
Samantha during the last few years has been reinventing herself by doing different performance-oriented roles. Samantha with Yashoda showed her acting prowess once again. She showed variations in her expressions and emotions. At the start, she played the role of an innocent girl out to help her sister and then shows her curiosity to find out the mysterious happenings in the hospital. Samantha indulged in breathtaking stunts and also emoted well showing her feelings as a pregnant woman. For all her performance, the character arc in the film all Samantha's hard work failed to elevate it to the next level. The dialogues of Pulagam Chinnarayana and Bhagyalakshmi are impactful and thought-provoking. They highlighted the emotions quite well.
Varalakshmi Sarathkumar played the role typical to her appearance and of late she is getting similar kinds of roles. But her flashback episode turned out to be artificial. Unni Mukundan performed the supporting role well as the doctor. His role comes with a surprise. But Unni Mukundan's role could have been elevated more. Rao Ramesh once again entertained with his dialogue delivery and antics and expressions. Shatru, Sampath Raj, and others performed according to their roles.
Mani Sharma's music is just ok. None of the songs get registered. His background music is in sync with the story and took viewers along with them. The cinematography of Sukumar is good and gave a rich feel to the scenes. The editing of Marthand K Venkatesh is ok but could have been far better as there are a few drags in the film.
Samantha's Yashoda with Hari and Harish generated immense interest among movie lovers with interesting teasers and trailers. Hari and Harish tried to show Samantha in a completely different role and expose the surrogacy scandals showing Samantha as the surrogate mother. This is quite interesting and with the interesting concept and plot, they proceeded ahead. They started the proceedings in an interesting way but in between, they failed to maintain the tempo as the screenplay went uneven. It went from racy to patchy and artificial and routine elements marred their creativity. Had Hari and Harish included a few more interesting twists and turns to thrill the viewers, Yashoda could have made an even better impact. Yashoda for the brilliant start and interesting interval bang in the end turned routine with the climax. Altogether Yashoda is an interesting medical thriller that failed to show more power. Considering all these aspects, Cinejosh goes with a 2.5 rating for Yashoda.