Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye Review: Raj B Shetty’s Romantic Poetry on Grief Gives You Hope

Director: Raj B Shetty

Cast: Raj B Shetty, Siri Ravikumar, Gopalkrishna Deshpande

Duration: 101 minutes

Available in: Theatres

Do you know about the flower called the ‘Carnation of India’? Sometimes, this flower grows too long and the owners try to cut it off. Yet, it does not stop blooming. They say doing work for others is great but what we do for ourselves is independence. And that is the crux of this beautiful film called Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye (SWMH).

I am super happy to see two romantic films back-to-back in Kannada (Sapta Sagaradaache Ello and SWMH). Everybody needs romance in life and otherwise. Nowadays we like realistic love stories more and if we see something that is a bit over the top, we will say that this won’t happen in reality. We tend to look at logic in love stories. In fact, when I watched Sapta Sagaradaache Ello - Side A, I wondered why Manu (Rakshit Shetty) left everything in his life and went to jail. But love makes you do crazy things.

There is also the type of love that we see in our daily life. It could be on the street where the husband is trying to match his pace with his wife; it could be a wife trying to save the last piece of chakli (a snack) for her husband; or it could just be a couple sharing that coffee and Masala Dose. Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye is the most realistic love story of 2023. The common factor between the instances I just mentioned and the film is that people who are in love with each other never say it. It’s just there.

The trailer shows that the protagonist Prerana, played by Siri Ravikumar, is a counsellor. She helps terminally ill patients come to terms with their eventual death. The name of this hospice care centre is known as ‘Asare’ (Shelter/Support). Within the first ten minutes, it is evident that Prerana is really good at her job. Over the years, the job has made her aloof. The job has become such a routine that after her morning rounds her assistant casually asks her, “Are those earrings new?”

Prerana has a normal routine and she is a person who tends to go with the flow, which is probably due to her job. One day, a man named Aniketh (Raj B Shetty) comes to the hospice centre. Aniketh becomes a challenge for Prerana and the story follows how she handles the situation and how Aniketh becomes a branch of support to Prerana.

When you watch a good film, you feel multiple emotions such as happiness, sadness, sympathy, pain, and more. The film checks all these boxes. The story captures your imagination despite being only 1 hour and 42 minutes long. All the characters in the film that appear throughout the course of the film will be relatable as everyone has loved and lost at some point in their lives. Longing and sadness is something that is common in everyone’s lives, but everyone deals with it in different ways.

A good romantic film gives you hope. Raj B Shetty, who also directs the film, gives a positive spin on death. Watch out for the scene where he writes a poem, which becomes an inspiration for Prerana. The poem is beautiful and so is the scene. Raj B Shetty treats some scenes differently. You should also watch out for the one where we expect a confrontation, which is justified, but the way it plays out is beautifully strong.

There are three main reasons why Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye works for me. Raj B Shetty has shown grief in a nice way. The way we deal with grief is as different as our tastes in life. There is no right or wrong to it. Every person’s way of dealing with grief is completely justified and we should not be the judge of it. Nobody in the film judges the way another processes grief. In addition, Raj Shetty has the creative sense to not show everything that occurs in the story directly on screen. Many times, we know that something has happened but Shetty has the expertise to not show it exactly as it transpired.

When each food item in a thali meal is in perfect proportion, the meal will completely satisfy you. Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye is a perfect thali for a cinephile. Raj B Shetty’s writing, and performance along with Siri Ravikumar, Balaji Manohar, Rekha Kudligi, and JP Thumminad is top-notch. So is Praveen Shriyan’s editing and cinematography, as well as Midhun Mukundan’s music. This film is not a tear-jerker in the conventional way as it is more about love and hope.