Cast: Prithviraj, Kunjacko Boban, Jaya Surya, Meera Jasmin, Bhavana
Music: Mohan Sitara
Direction: Kamal

Kamal has tried to create a music-based, colorful teenage love story in SWAPNAKOODU. He deals with his pet subject about friendship love and sacrifice. But this time, Kamal has not succeeded in his attempt completely.

Kamal always made big hits (NAMMAL and NIRAM) when he dealt with the story of campus teenagers. His fans, especially teenage-fans expected more from him as he claimed that SWAPNAKKOODU is a movie done by youths for the youths. But SWAPNAKKOODU is a disappointment to some extend.

Nothing new in the story. But he had tried to picturise this timeworn tale with colorful shots. Unlike other directors, Kamal pays much attention to song picturisation here. In an Interview recently he had said: "We had a story board for the two songs and we chose Vienna as no Malayalam film has been shot there. We had shot the songs in Vienna Old city, Salsburg, Meeraben gardens, Visionbrun palace and other places". But unfortunately the much-hyped song picturisation in Vienna too did not help to create any overall positive impact (It is after a small gap, a Malayalam film was shot in Europe).

SWAPNAKKOODU has some similarities of Fazil's MANJIL VIRINJA POOKAL, in which Mohanlal played a negative role. The film is inspired from Farhan Aktar's DIL CHAHTA HAI. It's about three friends and their experiments with love.

I think one flaw in this film is the lack of insight about modern life. Kamal in this movie tried to idealize friendship between three youngsters who come to a city to study for Hotel management course. But Kamal forgot that friendship is nothing but a superfluous plastic in this modern society. So his attempt to project friendship above all makes weak story thread. So this story itself is unrealistic. Here in this movie three friends are ready to sacrifice even their love for the sake of friendship. Is it that much convincing story line for this modern generation? 

Prithviraj shines well in his role as Alex, a toughie. Jaisurya also performed well in his role as Ashta Murthy. Jaisurya is competent to create good laughter in the theatres.

Very strong feminine characters are one of the specialties of Kamal's movie. Here too he had introduced two sisters Meera Jasmin and Bhavana. Meera Jasmin has outperformed Bhavana in this movie. She deals all intricacies of her character well. The change of the character from an outgoing girl to a tragic heroine were very safe in Meera's hand.

Songs were really nice and new. Mohan Sitara has done beautiful music out of Kaithapram's nice lyrics. Now SWAPNAKKOODU songs are in popular charts. P. Sukumar's camera was well balanced to capture beautiful frames. As an editor K. Rajagopal too has done a good job.