Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi’s much-awaited romantic love drama, Love Story is carrying high expectations among the audience. This Sekhar Kammula directorial has hit the screens worldwide today. Let’s see how it fares.
Story: Revanth( Naga Chaitanya), a low caste guy from Armoor town comes to Hyderabad with big dreams. He runs a Zumba centre by training the local people. This is the time, a high caste girl named Mounika ( Sai Pallavi) from the same Armoor town comes to Hyderabad in search of a job. How will Revanth come across Mounika? Later, what incidents bring them close to each other? What is the conflict point in their love story? How will the couple face the challenges in society to win their love? Forms the rest of the story.
Performances: Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi lead the show with their outstanding performance. Both of them literally lived in the given roles and created an impact with their natural acting.
Naga Chaitanya surprises with his mature performance in the given underdog role. His dialogue delivery in the Telangana accent is perfect. On the other hand, Sai Pallavi gave a convincing performance in the given role which has a scope to display multiple emotions. To simplify, both Chay and Sai Pallavi carried the film on their shoulders and impress with their acting.
Rajiv Kanakala as a baddie is okay with his screen presence but his character lacks proper justification and clarity in it. Other noted artists such as Devayani, Eswari Rao, Uttej are convincing in their given roles.
Technicalities: Cinematography by Vijay C Kumar is nice during the first half proceedings that are canned in the city backdrop but look dull at parts in the second half.
The VFX and graphics work in a few crucial scenes in the second half have not been done in a proper manner. Editing by Marthand K Venkatesh is alright as he tried his best to keep the film’s runtime within the limits.
Songs by Pawan CH are a major plus for the film but his background score fails to elevate the emotions in a proper manner. Production design work is good and so is the case with the production values.
Analysis: Director Sekhar Kammula has his unique style in narrating love stories and did the same with this film also. He took the love story between a lower caste guy and a high caste girl as the core element and explored the struggles in their love story in his way of narrative and largely succeeded.
During the first-half proceedings, the struggle to achieve big in the hero character has been presented in an authentic manner in the Zumba fitness centre backdrop. Parallelly, the pain and family restrictions in the heroine role has been showcased with some realistic setup which indeed brings a lot of depth to the proceedings. The chemistry between the lead pair has been established nicely and enhances the feel of the film.
The introduction episodes between the hero and heroine are canned beautifully with Zumba dancer as the core theme and set up a positive vibe for the film by the end of the first half. But the main problem is with the second half proceedings as the conflict point in the love story has not been handled in a gripping manner. If Sekhar Kammula would have focused on presenting the crucial point in an engaging way in the second half with an even better screenplay, the result would have been unanimous.
Overall, Love Story is a watchable romantic drama that has some brilliant performances from the lead pair. But lack of depth in addressing the conflict point and uneven proceedings in the latter half with the abrupt ending may disappoint the audience.
Verdict: Addresses the core issue in the love story!
Rating: 3/5
Review By Prudhvi Teja
