Priyanka can be split into two parts. The first half is the story of a woman’s crumbling mind as her allegiance to her husband is challenged by her desire to find justice for a victimized friend. The second half switches to being more of a courtroom drama and “battle of men”. The first half of the film, which rests primarily on Revathi’s shoulders (as she plays the title role), ends up being the better half. Her portrayal of a woman whose mind is being tortured by her situation is extremely effective. Here’s one scene that stood out to me: When the opposing lawyer, in an early court scene, attempts to prove that Priyanka is a mad woman and have her institutionalized, her shock and helpless response is chillingly realistic.
However, when the movie switches away from Revathi, which it does quite a bit in the second half, the effect wears down. The other actor’s performances are satisfactory but they do not have the same power, and because of this, we start to notice some failures in the script. For example, the opposing lawyers are more or less simple villains without much depth. The same can be said for the conniving “evil family” which will casually go to the lengths of murder to protect their honour without any moral scruples. The actual courtroom scenes where Prabhu’s character and the opposing lawyer argue before a judge are fairly good, but scenes outside the courtroom where they challenge each other are not compelling. I’m not impressed by watching two men trying to challenge each other’s manliness.
So to repeat, the film is good when it focuses on the moral dilemma and deterioration of the Priyanka character, but becomes weaker when the film becomes a generic “battle of men”. Priyanka’s speech at the finale, in her emotionally battered state, is quite powerful, but the ending itself is a fairly standard and convenient one. The songs are all typical interruptions with not much impact on the story, although near the climax there is a song where Priyanka dances to Goddess Durga which is rather memorable. Essentially, Priyanka can be described as an average movie that has an excellent lead performance.