Ashta Chamma: The importance of being Mahesh!

"..I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest."
- Jack aka Ernest John in Oscar Wilde's 'The importance of being Ernest'.

More than a 100 years after Oscar Wilde penned his famous play ‘The importance of being Ernest’, Mohanakrishna Indraganti comes up with an adaptation of the same, and how! A gem of a movie with perfect writing and casting, it keeps us so engaged from credits-to-credits that I actually find it hard to believe that the play set in Victorian age can be adapted any better. The main credit goes to Mohanakrishna for successfully making this story native with a masterstroke – using the name of Mahesh, the filmstar. Mohanakrishna‘s Telugu dialogues with the wordplay fit in so perfectly with the mood of this light-hearted movie. After a long time, we actually get to hear actors speaking Telugu and not just sounding that way! This movie is yet another example what good casting can do. Some of scenes featuring lead actress Colors Swathi were simply excellent. The two male leads put in excellent timing and it shows that they didn’t make it to movies just because they are someone’s sons!
The movie taps on Maheshmania successfully and that is where Mohanakrishna showed his knack into popular psyche. And despite all good writing and faithful adaptation Mohanakrishna produced, this movie wouldn’t have turned up so well if not for this knack. After all, the name Mahesh makes the story our own, adds liveliness, an extra zing and gives the movie good promotion(Otherwise the name Ernest has no baggage in the original play, it’s just that Gwendolen, whose part Swathi plays here, likes that name very fondly). So Mahesh Babu inadvertently introduces ‘The importance of being Ernest’ into mainstream Telugu homes.

Welcome Oscar Wilde.