Sai Tej after many failures has come with a movie Chitralahari. The movie is said to be his comeback film and let’s see how it is.
Plot: A person named Vijay Krishna (Sai Tej) tries to find a way to reach the zenith of success but failures keep pushing him into an abyss. He meets a girl, Lahari (Kalyani Priyadarshan) and she doesn’t really have an independent decision.
Sweccha (Nivetha Pethuraj) tries to give her cynical views about everything in the world to people around her. How, Vijay’s one idea to success changes all their lives is the story.
Performances:: Sai Tej as a performer is good but his character did not get enough strength from the filmmaker. The script always tell us that he is a loser and frustrated person but never really shows us the depth of his pain.
Similarly, even Kalyani Priyadarshan, Nivetha Pethuraj characters don’t really shine as much as they should have. It just looks like some people sat together and conversed but never really feels like a film that carries their emotions. Suneel, Vennela Kishore are wasted. Posani Krishna Murali is good.
Technicalities:: Srikar Prasad as an editor showed all his experience to keep the movie moving even at a snail pace and tried to give the cut, good rhythm. But script demeaned all his efforts.
Devi Sri Prasad as a composer seems to be recycling his old tunes and trying to present them as new every time. He needs some introspection. In this movie, his songs and background score are too weak.
Karthik Ghattamaneni as a cinematographer tried his hand at lighting the scenes than really composing the shots with energy that reflects from the scenes.
Tirumala Kishore as a dialogue writer is talented but as a director, he is still taking baby steps in giving respect where it deserves. He is in the mindset that a good punchline is enough to convey emotions and convince the audience. But that is not enough in a movie that talks about losers. The pain needs to be felt and shown not just said.
Analysis:: The most memorable scene in this movie is the opening scene and after that, the movie goes downhill like a car sliding down a cliff at 100 miles/hour. The movie takes the major issue of protagonist’s failures and tries to show his frustration like a third person than in first person perspective. Hence, we don’t feel his pain and frustration as deep as we should.
Everything else in the story too feels forced rather than with a purpose. The end twist and the way it unravels till then just bores you to death due to pacing issues like Vunnadi Okate Zindagi. Tirumala Kishore might be a good dialogue writer but as a director, he is eons behind in clearly stating the emotions. This could have been a good film but it falls behind.
Rating: 2/5
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