Half a star extra for this Telugu eye-candy for the sheer relief when compared with this week’s other Tamil-Telugu optical abomination.
At least Telusu Kada is trying to be fresh and appealing in visuals, and if the emotions seem somewhat scratch-level, then blame it on the characters who suffer from what can glibly be termed as First-world problems. The three main characters in this triangular aperitif never have to worry about where their next meal is coming from or how to pay the next EMI.
So they manufacture shallow problems for themselves. When we first meet the film’s hero Varun (Siddhu Jonnalagadda, interesting when not overdoing it) he is burning up the bonfire of his vanities, literally. Varun has been ditched by a girl whom he wants to get even with. Swearing vengeance, Varun’s misogyny in the opening should serve as ample warning for what’s to come.
Incidentally, listening to the hero venting spleen throughout the film is Mahesh (Harsha Chemudu), Varun’s receptacle/sidekick/bestie. The week’s other Telugu release Dude too features this mandatory character, the hero’s alter-ego who seems more sensible than the hero.
But we are straying. This is one crime Telusu Kada never commits. It sticks to the straight and narrow path. The triangular sweet-nothing remains within the zone of cuteness. Even when a serious issue like child surrogacy crops up, you can still dial ‘f’ for fluff anytime and get an engaged, if not an engaging, tone.
The film’s protagonist Varun is a curious mix of modernity and conservatism, of man and child. He has lost his family and craves to have one of his own. But his behaviour throughout the film is entirely misanthropic. The way he plays musical chairs with the two leading ladies—often quite literally since the soundtrack is suffused with a synthetic sonorousness—doesn’t say much about his respect for the family nucleus.
The second half tries to work a complex narrative style into what is clearly a Karan Johar homage with lots of gloss and glib talk and characters who never seem to follow the rhythms of ordinary living. They are immaculately dressed 24/7, and even when their hair is ruffled, it is designer-ruffled.
The two ladies in the sweet-toothed fable, Raashi Khanna and Srinidhi Shetty, are purely functional. They are meant to bring out the different shades of toxicity in the leading man.
It comes as no surprise to know debutante director Neeraja Kona is a costume designer. She prettifies every frame with controlled raindrops and frothy coffee mugs but avoids steamy sex. The characters talk a lot about sex. But there is no real intimacy—not even a single liplock—just steamy talk, talk. Which makes this the Disney-Dharma PG-rated version of Adrian Lyne’s cinema.
This is akin to taking away the actual coffee from an espresso and leaving only the creamy top. And that is not such an awful thing to happen, provided you are not a sucker for deep diving into characters whose only problem is they have no problem.
Neerja Kona has made a good-looking film with a cast that speaks its lines about “estrogen” and “surrogacy” without sounding intellectual. These are characters who google “smart talk” before attending a party.
The background score is used to saturation point. It is so insistent and loud, we hardly get to know what the characters are feeling. Maybe we are not meant to. The constant reverse-editing is unwarranted. It is like adding a dash of density to an episode of Koffee With Karan.
