Swathi Muthyam

<p>Sivayya ( ) is an innocent orphan with a brain injury resulting in low intellectual function. He lives along with his grandmother ( ) in a village. In that village, Lalitha ( ), a young widow with a five-year-old son, lives along with her brother Chalapati’s ( ) family. She and her son often get abused by her sister-in-law ( ), but Lalitha, having nowhere to go, bears it all. Sivayya often encounters Lalitha and gets appalled by her condition. One day, during festival, Sivayya marries Lalitha, shocking all the villagers. His grandmother ( ) approves of his marriage as she also has much sympathy and regard for Lalitha, but his uncle and Orthodox villagers oppose that marriage as they consider remarriage of a widow as a sin. In that brawl, Sivayya’s grandmother dies, leaving innocent Sivayya in the hands of Lalitha. Lalitha moves in with her husband with the blessings of her brother. Some of the villagers help them to build a new life. Gradually, Lalitha makes Sivayya understand the household duties and responsibilities of a man. Sivayya finds work and starts to support his wife and stepson. Later they have a son and live happily for a long time. Years pass, and Lalitha becomes ill and dies in her husband’s arms. In the climax, Sivayya walks out of his house surrounded by his children and grandchildren. He carries a plant, which was his memory of Lalitha’s love. Arun Kumar and Venkatesh were the production designers for the film. The film was shot for nearly 70 days near the shores of , Torredu, Tadikonda, , , and . did a small role as one of the grandsons of Kamal Haasan. The scene where Haasan dances like someone who cannot dance took so many days to get it “rightly wrong”, as Haasan is a seasoned dancer. Initially, the team had approached actress for the role of Lalitha, but she declined due to a packed shooting schedule, as she was continuously working in Bollywood. The music was composed by . said in 2017, “K. Viswanath, this year’s recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, made three films with Kamal Haasan. is the best, the weakest – and between these two films, chronologically and quality-wise, lies (White Pearl).” Reviewing the Tamil dubbed version , of wrote that even if it seems like an aimless story that started somewhere and suddenly stopped, the reality is that we have connected with the story until it happened. Reviewing Tamil dubbed version, Balumani of praised acting, dialogues, music, screenplay and direction.</p>