Director: Vijay
Cast: Prabhu Deva, Aishwarya Rajesh, Ditya Bhande, Kovai Sarala.
Twelve year old Lakshmi’s (Ditya) life revolves around dance but her mother Nandhini (Aishwarya Rajesh) a bank employee hates dance. Lakshmi is obsessed with dance to the extent that she dances on the streets, the bus in which she travels to school, her classroom and even in a coffee shop, where she befriends Vijay Krishna (Prabhu Deva). However, Nandhini is totally unaware of Lakshmi’s movements.
Lakshmi’s only aim is to win the Pride of India's Junior competition, a reality show hosted by a satellite channel. Impressed with her talents, Krishna enrolls Lakshmi at the famous Chennai Dance Academy. She soon becomes the star among other children at the academy.
With the help of her school principal (Kovai Sarala), and in the pretext of attending an educational tour, Lakshmi sets out for Mumbai to attend the final dance competition.
When everything is set for Chennai group to perform at the contest, Lakshmi struggles because of her stage fear and her team gets disqualified. Krishna intervenes at this juncture and requests the orgainsers to give them one more chance. And that is when it is revealed that Krishna aka VK is a former dancing legend and he has a back story to narrate. Now, the committee members throw a challenge to Krishna . Whether Lakshmi emerges victorious forms the reminder of the film.
Undoubtedly, Ditya who plays the titular role is the show stealer. The little girl looks cute, full of life and floors us with her graceful dance movements and extraordinary facial expressions. Her lip-sync is also perfect. As usual Prabhu Deva enthralls the audiences with his electrifying dance, which comes in the flashback episodes. But the portions involving the relationship between Aishwarya and Prabhu Deva and their emotional connect are not established properly. Aishwarya has nothing much to perform. Kovai Sarala manages to evoke laughter with her antics while lying to Nandhini after sending Lakshmi to Mumbai. Karunakaran is also there in the film. All the kids who performed at the dance show are a treat to watch with special mention to Arjun and the plump Arnold who are also well-known dancers in real life.
The first half moves at a sluggish pace, while the momentum picks up post interval although it ends with a predictable climax. Vijay has also takes a dig at the issue of TRP driven media practices. On the technical front Nirav Shah’s cinematography aides the film’s narration and Sam CS music is just about adequate. If you are a dance lover, watch Lakshmi for the sake of the rocker Ditya, Prabhu Deva and other passionate dancers.
