May 21, 2012 Y. Sunita Chowdary
When Seeta (Melanie Kannokada) an Indian, declares that love is the root cause of all troubles at the age of 12, it definitely throws light on her maturity. We learn her mother turned pregnant when she was fourteen and left her in an adoption home. She has been taken into the fold by a childless American parents who gave her the name Seeta after the King Janaka who had no children prayed and was blessed with a daughter.
The insecurity begins as a child; when she walks home with her new parents, her mother becomes pregnant and she asks her father if she has to return home (adoption home). She knows what it is to not have parents and also is happy at the sense of belonging but what the film probably wants to stress is - that you can run away from a lot of things in your life but you can't really run away from who you are. Love is like a passing phase, fades away as you grow and she believes in this dictum.
Love, Lies & Seeta begins with a great life that a bunch of New Yorkers, six young people Seeta, Ramya, Caroline and Rahul, Tom, Bhavuk. All the three realise they have fallen in love with Seeta and they seek Ramya's and Caroline's help, some tips to date her.
The woman with fixed idea that love is a lie is willing to date all the three men around the same time but reveals to them they are not her type, she instead finds herself getting attracted to her childhood companion at the adoption home who comes hunting for her in New York. The remaining part of the story is about how the love triangle envelopes the friends and other characters.
Chandra Pemmaraju is lucky to have a cast who are so good, they are all so charming and natural in their work; Even the actor who played Seeta's mom for a few seconds, who's seen glancing at a man smoking on a bridge, allows her eyes to demonstrate her longing for a fag.
Love, Lies & Seeta is a fun film, it could have been far more better had the pace been swift and the content more compact. The introduction and the first part of the film is captivating and the director gives an impression that the element of philosophy woven around Seeta during childhood and her growing years would lead to something far more intense, but he makes it a very ordinary story.
Also at one stage you wonder why Seeta is being given so much bhaav when she doesn't believe in love and dates three guys only to disappoint them. All the girls Seeta, Ramya and Caroline are very distinctive and reflect their lifestyle, how they live life on their own terms. The boys in love including the man who play's Seeta's brother have humourous lines.
But did the director need to dress up Seeta in a garish South Indian lehenga blouse to show her Indianness? This film that aims at the hipster generation has English subtitles to help people comfortable in vernacular languages understand the fast paced and accented American English, the run time which is around 100 minutes. Chandra makes the audience feel as if, there are right in midst of the characters in New York. Music is delectable.
This Indo-American movie has Indian Americans and American actors as the cast and has been shot in RED. Absence of melodrama, good writing and lively and bright performances makes LLS is a reasonably engaging watch.
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