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Santosham (2002 film)

Santosham (transl. Happiness) is a 2002 Indian Telugu-language comedy drama film directed by Dasaradh who co-wrote the film with Gopimohan and Trivikram Srinivas. It stars Nagarjuna, Gracy Singh and Shriya Saran in lead roles, with K. Viswanath and Prabhu Deva playing the supporting roles. The music was composed by R. P. Patnaik. The film won two Nandi Awards and two Filmfare Awards South.

Released on 9 May 2002, the film was well received by critics and was declared a Blockbuster at the box office. It became the highest grossing film in Nagarjuna's career and was one of the highest grossing films of the year. It was a welcome break for Nagarjuna from the consecutive flops he suffered since 2000. It was dubbed in Tamil as Santhosha Vanille and in Hindi as Pehli Nazar ka Pehla Pyaar. The film was remade in Kannada as Ugadi (2007).

Plot

Karthik is a rich architect in Ooty. He falls in love with Padmavathi "Padhu". Padhu is hesitant to accept and reciprocate Karthik's love, as she doesn't know what kind of a person he is. Padmavathi has a younger cousin named Bhanu. Bhanu encourages their love and gives courage to Padhu's feelings. When Padhu reveals her love, her father Ramachandrayya enraged, resists and asks her to marry the guy he has chosen for her. Motivated by Bhanu's words, Padhu leaves a letter to her parents and elopes to marry Karthik. Angered by her actions, Ramachandrayya breaks family ties with her.

Karthik and Padmavathi get married and migrate to New Zealand, and later give birth to a kid named Lucky. Padmavathi is very eager to get back to her parents and get their blessings. Padhu, unfortunately, dies in a car accident. Ramachandrayya has a huge joint family. A few of the family members opine that inviting Karthik and his kid for a marriage to happen at their place would allow getting a closer look at Lucky.

When Karthik visits Ramachandrayya's place he gets mixed responses from different people in the house. Ramachandrayya doesn't like Karthik and others like him. Over some time, Karthik impresses them all and when he is about to go back to New Zealand, Ramachandrayya expresses his repentance for whatever happened and says that he is accepting Karthik as his son-in-law.

Bhanu has fallen in love with Karthik. She meets Karthik, a widower now. She still has feelings for him. But at the same time, there is Pawan - a childhood friend of Bhanu - who is deeply in love with her. Karthik returns to New Zealand. Bhanu along with Pawan visits Karthik. During that period, Bhanu gets closer to Karthik. When Karthik realizes her intentions, he fixes Pawan as her fiancée for her. Now Bhanu is about to marry Pawan.

Bhanu loves Karthik, but Karthik hesitates to repeat the history by marrying a girl against the wishes of her family. Just as Karthik is about to leave for good with his son, Ramachandrayya stops him from leaving and pleads with him to marry Bhanu. Also, Pawan comes and pleads with Karthik to marry Bhanu as he can tell that Bhanu is not happy about the marriage. The film has a happy ending with Karthik and Bhanu marrying.

Cast

Production

The film was shot in New Zealand and Ooty.

Soundtrack

The music was composed by R. P. Patnaik. The music was released on SUPREME Music Company.

Reception

A critic from Sify wrote that "Debutant director Dasarath has done a fairly decent job, and the music of R.P.Patnaik has good hummable melodies". A critic from Idlebrian.com wrote that "First half of the film is entertaining. The beginning of second half is little boring. But the director got the audiences back into his grip half an hour before climax". A critic from Full Hyderabad wrote that "I recommend this movie to people who enjoy musical/romantic movies and to Nag fans".