{mosimage} One of the recent hits of Malayalam that still gives oxygen to the hope of discerning malayalam cinema viewers. "Veruthe Oru Bharya" (Just a wife) is a tribute to all the hardwork an ordinary housewife puts in towards the welfare of her family, yet slipping into the anonymity. A devoted wife Bindu (Gopika), who keeps aside all her dreams (she learnt dancing for 12 years but left it after the marriage) only to take care her egoistic and irritable husband Sugunan (Jayaram) and a grown up daughter Anjana (Nivedha), calls it quits one fine day when she is frustrated that her emotions are not valued. Sugunan tries to run the family as a single parent, but realises that nothing can replace the love and care of a wife. To be frank I was tempted to rate this movie as a potential classic till it reached the interval. A lot of the scenes will make the male society to introspect themselves at home and the way Bindu walks out of Sugunan's life in a huff is well etched. The movie is so simple and looks like a leaf out of our lives but unfortunately falls into the cliched melodrama in the second half before giving few free lessons to us. The movie reminds too much of Srinivasan's "Chinthavistayaya Shyamala"and AK Lohitadas's "Bhoothakkannadi". Still the movie strikes the right chords and would have been still more better had it avoided the melodrama in later half. "Veruthe..." was the swansong of Gopika as well as the comeback vehicle of Jayaram. All said and done, "Veruthe Oru Bharya" takes you in a nostalgic trip to the 80's where the simplicity and substance ruled the malayalam cinema. -- {oshits} reads online.
