Yashoda Review: Big Let Down

There is nothing exceptional in the plot that will blow your mind away, warns Divya Nair.

Most medical crime thrillers tend to have a certain sentiment factor that draws you in.

In the Web series Human, it was about illegal drug testing involving poor people.

With Yashoda, Director duo Hari Shankar and Harish Narayan have focused on the crimes around illegal surrogacy.

The film begins with the murder of an international model in India, followed by a car accident of a young businessman and his fiancée, also a Miss India aspirant.

While a special team of cops set out to investigate the links between the two deaths, we are parallelly introduced to Yashoda (Samantha Ruth Prabhu), a food delivery agent who volunteers to become a surrogate mother in exchange for money to arrange her younger sister Brinda's surgery.

As soon as the doctor confirms her pregnancy, Yashoda is paid a bounty and escorted to a secret facility.

Despite being warned about the risks, an unmarried Yashoda takes up the offer.

No questions asked, none answered.

At Eva, a surrogate facility run by Madhu (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) with Dr Gautham (Unni Mukundan), she becomes friends with expectant mothers, who share banal sob stories as excuses to opt for surrogacy.

When one of their peers loses her feotus, Yashoda smells a rat and soon discovers there's more to the world around them than providing a womb for the rich and less fortunate.

Now even if you plan to waste your money and watch this movie in a multiplex, let me warn you there is nothing exceptional in the plot that will blow your mind away.

The suspense doesn't last long, but it's not exciting either.

The plot is neither convincing nor engaging enough to keep you hooked. In fact, there are more loopholes in the story and execution than the blind spots Yashoda ducks while trying to escape from the facility.

Samantha tries really hard to keep a straight face dealing with the mundaneness around her while talented artistes like Varalaxmi and Unni Mukundan look like mere puppets in this unreal drama that stretches unnecessarily for over two hours.

Two scenes from the film that really stood out for me -- the first one where Yashoda finds out that the peaceful and serene view of the white pigeon outside her window is a mere illusion; and two, the pulsating fight sequence between her and Jenny in the janitor room.

The idea behind the film's title and the apt choice of subject is interesting, but Yashoda is a huge let down especially for Samantha, who deserved something better and stronger after an impressive performance in The Family Man 2.

Personally, I don't think any gynaecologist would approve of a pregnant woman performing so much stunts and surviving to tell the tale. But since it's an Indian film, I remembered my father's golden words: ""Kathayil chodhyam illya (don't look for logic in a story)."