The premise of the film is that a 28-year-old school teacher, Archana (Aishwarya Lekshmi) is preparing for her wedding, even though she has met 30 suitors and has been rejected by 31. However, the 31st proposal comes from an NRI guy named Prasad (Ramesh Pisharody), who has come to Palakkad to take up a job in the Gulf.
There are quite a few situations in this movie that are funny and entertaining. However, it would have worked better as a short film rather than a full-length feature film.
Despite its humorous, socially observant beginning and its delicious twist of progressiveness in the end, archana 31 not out has a bloated middle that hardly gets any mileage from. Its dragging middle has pretentions to being a wedding film but fails miserably since no character in this portion is written with any degree of detail, seemingly unending minutes drag on and on with random people popping in and out of the frame but serving no purpose and no new insights are offered into Archana’s mindset or the surrounding socio-cultural landscape beyond what is already known from the opening half hour.
The main protagonist, Archana, tries her best to bring out a compelling story, but the dull script and her acting prowess cannot help convert the good idea into a great one. Aishwarya Lekshmi deserves a much better lead role than this.
