‘Love Story’ movie review: Sekhar Kammula’s sensitive film draws winsome performances from Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi

How does one outline honour? Does it lie in adhering to caste norms, or does it lie in making a secure setting and instilling confidence in a baby to talk up when issues go awry? Director Sekhar Kammula makes use of the platform of a mainstream entertainer to make household audiences introspect.

Love Story has all the trimmings of a Kammula movie. The music (debut composer Pawan Ch) can sweep us off our toes, the strong-willed main woman dances like a dream and the hero is an intensive gentleman. Romance blossoms on the terraces of middle-class properties in Padmarao Nagar, Secunderabad. Because the movie unfolds in modest settings, with out larger-than-life frills, it reveals how absorbing a movie will be when there’s a great script.

In Armoor, Telangana, Revanth (Naga Chaitanya) grows up listening to his mom (Easwari Rao) reiterate the significance of incomes and residing with dignity. She tells him that it’s higher to be able the place you can provide monetary help than having to obtain it. Revanth’s is successful story; he runs a small Zumba centre within the large metropolis. There are challenges, however he’s able the place he can make use of somebody.

Sekhar contrasts this with Mounica (Sai Pallavi), an upper-caste woman who arrives within the metropolis with desires in her eyes. Her household owns acres of land, however she has to battle for her rights — monetary and in any other case. She realises that her low rating in engineering received’t get her a fats paycheck. Lengthy after Blissful Days (2007), through which Kammula focussed on engineering campuses, he reveals us the opposite aspect — of an engineer embracing her innate aptitude for dance to get forward in life, reasonably than pushing keys on a pc from daybreak to nightfall. Mounica finds her wings to fly however lives in fixed concern of her household disapproving of her work. She phrases it ‘narakam’ (hell) and you’ll empathise along with her plight.

Within the metropolis, there are not any ‘us’ and ‘them’ caste variations, no less than on a floor degree. Revanth and Mouncia can take Zumba and dance courses collectively and earn a residing. Nonetheless, the cracks in society are laid naked via the story of one other couple.

Again in Armoor, there are telling scenes the place Revanth and his mom proceed to be seemed down upon by an upper-caste family. His work is mocked and somebody doesn’t assume twice earlier than providing him second-hand shirts.

Mounica and Revanth’s respective baggage from the previous run as an undercurrent to the romance. He’s bored with caste disparities. She too is battling one thing complicated and has to seek out the braveness to voice it. She finds solace within the metropolis since she will breathe free, and doesn’t must look over her shoulders for security. In a cleverly written scene, she tells Revanth that she’s going to dance on the situation that he all the time maintains two toes distance. We all know that she isn’t referring to caste; one thing else has left her scarred.

It’s a movie the place the whole lot comes collectively in synergy. Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi internalise their components so nicely that they’re in sync with the characters they painting. Chaitanya is pure and emotes with all sincerity, triumphing in a career-defining function. Sai Pallavi is superb, expressing the minute fears of Mounica. Props to Easwari Rao and the enjoyable cameo by Gangavva. Rajeev Kanakala acts like an embodiment of conceitedness and evil so successfully, that I ended up hating him completely.

A handful of scenes unfold within the neighborhood of Purana Pul (pc graphics?), a reminder of a historic love story Hyderabad is related to. Revanth and Mounica too must cross the bridge amid storms, metaphorically talking, to have the ability to begin life afresh.

Love Story may have been one more Sairaat, however Sekhar expertly steers it in a special route within the final act. Romance is among the mostly explored genres in industrial cinema and after a degree, one tends to view it with cynicism. However this one saved me invested; I watched with bated breath, hoping that Revanth and Mounica cross the hurdles of their path.