(, Wake Up Manjunatha) is a 2009 Indian Kannada language cult black comedy film written and directed by Guruprasad, and produced by journalist and director V. Sanath Kumar. Its stars Jaggesh and Yagna Shetty in the lead roles. Tabla Nani and V. Manohar appear in supporting in roles.
At the 2009–10 Karnataka State Film Awards, Guruprasad won the award for Best Screenplay. At the 57th Filmfare Awards South, the film won two awards – Best Director (Guruprasad) and Special Jury Award (Yagna Shetty).
Plot
This film is about the life and times of a lazy and jobless middle-aged man named Manjunatha ("Manja") who considers his life as an eventual existence rather than a practical, deserving and a capable one. His laziness is portrayed in the film as not a quality but as an ethic imbibed within his general thoughts and notions of the everyday world that surrounds him. Through his formative years, his thinking becomes pragmatic in considering that livelihood can always be sought through alternate sources rather than being a puppet to how the world goes about through linear methods of gaining success and money. The other essentially important character in the film is a visually impaired person named Naani (played by Tabla Naani). Although being born blind, he wishes to be a film director. Naani's most positive aspect of the role is that he does not believe that his physical disability could stop him from achieving what he dreams, that is to be a filmmaker. The film is structured around the lengthy conversation, which happens in a captive lodge room, between Manja and Naani where each depicts their ideologies and experiences and co-relate their thoughts. Being a Jaggesh film, the film is nowhere short in containing blatant satirical humour and constant metaphors. The characters of Manja and Naani form contrasting personalities - Manja being an unmotivated, lazy and irresponsible guy and Naani being optimistic and ambitious. Naani happens to meet Manja is a very interesting scenario. Even with their contrasting personalities, Manja and Naani get along together pretty well.
The other important, yet minimally portrayed, the role is of Manja's wife Gowri (played by Yagna Shetty). Manja admittedly marries Gowri in the fact that he was getting a small house as a dowry. Gowri struggles to save her relationship while Manja is doused into the casual habits of alcohol, his influential "circle" of friends, betting, occasional petty thieving at random jobs, inability to sustain decent jobs, wife-bitching and other habits including schemes that eventually thicken the gap between living a moral and meaningful life and being an incapable disloyal husband. However, Gowri's character is portrayed to be of a devout woman who honours the capacity of developing a more healthy family hood through her husband changing his ways someday or the other. But days and years go on and Manja's lifestyle remains unchanged much to the chagrin of Gowri.