Naa Manasistha Raa was released in 2001. A romantic thriller film, it was headlined by Srikanth, Soundarya, and Richa. Soundarya's character initially shares a platonic relationship with the male lead. She later acquires negative traits. Then a superstar heroine who was loved by the female audience and who attracted families to theatres without fail, Soundarya was a force to reckon with. She must have felt that playing a non-conventional part in the film would be a healthy diversion from her predictable career path. By then, she had acted in a number of family-friendly heroine roles opposite the likes of Venkatesh, Nagarjuna and others. Probably, she was bored and wanted to experiment.
Her move turned out to be a miscalculation, though. The film, a remake of Parthen Rasithen (Tamil), was rejected by the audience despite its decent album. It had dialogues written by Jandhyala. The effort goes to show that the team expected the film to go big. It didn't. Directed by RR Shinde, the film was one of the last ones from Soundarya. She passed away three years later, during the 2004 election campaigning for the BJP.
