Snegithiye

Plot

Vani "Vasu" Subramaniyam (Jyothika), her best friend Radhika (Sharbani Mukherjee) and their friends are pranksters in a ladies' college. Like other college girls, they sing songs, break rules and wreak havoc. They also have a grudge against Gita (Ishita Arun), a very rich, beautiful, arrogant girl from the college. Malathi (Lakshmi), Radhika's aunt, wants her niece to get married and so she can control their family business and factories. To escape and to maintain their friendship, Vani and Radhika fake a boyfriend whose name is Ramesh. However, this fantasy takes on a whole new meaning when a real person named Ramesh (Major Ravi) calls and sends Radhika letters claiming to be her boyfriend. To end this nuisance, Vani and Radhika invite Ramesh to the hostel during the college dance program and hand over the imposter to police. Vani instructs Radhika to bring a gun for their safety. Mysteriously, without them shooting him, Ramesh dies. At the same time, Radhika loses her chain. Suspicion eventually falls on the two friends. Gayathri (Tabu) is a man-hating police officer, and an ex-alumni in the same college that the girls study, is put on the case. To make matters worse, Gita suddenly disappears. Vani and Radhika find themselves as fugitives, running from the law in a bid to prove their innocence. They are chased by Gayathri and her police. Vasu suspects Malathi because she will trap her own niece in order to get the family properties but was proved wrong but Malathi knows the girls' true intentions and also played along with them in this Ramesh character by sending Vikram, Ramesh's true name to get closer to Radhika for marriage purpose only. So, both the girls apologise to Malathi for their suspicion. Meanwhile, a woman is shown as stalking the girls. The girls trace out the place where Gita is hiding, at the outskirts of Andhra Pradesh, confront her and inform Gayathri to arrest her. But she revealed that Gayathri is the killer of Ramesh/Vikram, with much shock to both Vasu and Radhika. Gita revealed that on the night of murder, she returned to hostel to take medications, witnessed the murder and flees from the scene as Gayathri will use her influence to hide up her crime. After, a chase Gayathri captured the trio but unfortunately got caught red-handed from her own police department. Because of the mental stress, she ends up in being mentally ill. The stalker who revelation herself as Prema Narayanan, an SP from the CBI who does an undergo investigation of Gayathri's murder. She reveals that Gayathri did this crime in order to avenge her sister's paralysis because Vikram raped her when Gayathri found out that he is a womanizer and confronted and threatened him when she found out that her sister was dating with him, and, of no choice, she framed Vasu and Radhika as the murderers. The film concludes that we see Gayathri in a mental asylum where the three girls, now as friends pay a visit to see her.

Production

The original story idea for the film was taken from Marathi writer Chandrakant Kulkarni, who had made the successful Marathi film, Bindhaast, based on the story last year. Priyadarshan heard about the film and asked producer Mukesh Mehta to see it and decide whether he would like to produce the movie and thus Mehta went to Bombay, saw the film and liked it. However the producer reiterated that they have taken only the main thread from the Marathi story with the rest of the film, its sub-plots and the treatment are completely different from the original. Initially, it was planned as a Malayalam film with a cast familiar to the Kerala audience. But as Priyadarshan's excitement over the project grew, the canvas got wider and the producer decided to look for a bigger audience. Thus Jyothika, Sharbani Mukherjee and Ishita Arun, daughter of Ila Arun, stepped in to give it a more national flavour. Seasoned actresses like Manorama, Lakshmi, Lalitha, Sukumari, Mita Vasisht, Tabu and Dipti Bhatnagar also joined the all-female team. Cinematographer Jeeva and art director Sabu Cyril also joined the team and they shot 90 per cent of the film in a college in Mysuru (previously Mysore) and the rest in Chennai (Madras), also featuring live coverage of the Dasara (Dussera) festival of Mysuru. The film was subsequently made simultaneously in Tamil and Malayalam with a title of Raakilipattu, while a Hindi version was also planned in 2000. The title of the Tamil version of the film was taken from a song from the 2000 Mani Ratnam film Alaipayuthey.

Jyothika prioritised her work in the project and thus delayed her schedules for Uyirile Kalanthathu in order to ensure the film was released as early as possible. The songs of the film were released at Devi Theatre with Kamal Haasan appearing as the chief guest.

Release

Release for the film was postponed several times with the makers hoping to get a simultaneous release for all versions. The team also noted the kidnapping of Kannada actor Rajkumar by bandit Veerappan as reason for the delay. Snegithiye opened to positive reviews but performed averagely at box office. However the film went on to inspire other film makers to produce all women ventures, with director Gnanasekharan announcing that his project, Aishwarya, starring Uma, Monal and Abhinayashree would be a "small-scale Snegithiye".

The film was dubbed and released in Hindi in 2007 as Friendship, but went unnoticed after arriving with very little publicity. Despite originally being planned in only Malayalam, that version was released in 2007.

Soundtrack

While S. P. Venkatesh composed the film score, all the songs were composed by Vidyasagar, except Kannukulle which was composed by Raghunath Seth as mentioned in the original audio cassette. The songs were well received by the audience.